


Part 3 - Broken Bits:  A Love Story

by MsAditu



Series: Broken Bits: A Love Story [3]
Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Human/Vampire Relationship, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Spoilers, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-23 20:54:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsAditu/pseuds/MsAditu
Summary: Based on the story of Astarion, as played in current "Early Release: Baldur's Gate 3." Part 1 is a series of relevant, connected interactions from the canon game (Astarion and diverse F/PC perspectives). Part 2 moves from Faerun to the real world, and Part 3 concludes in Faerun, non-canon storyline. Astarion - He's like having a security blanket if your security blanket could knife a dude.Lemons throughout - it's an elf thing. (Really, look it up.)The traumatized recognize each other - a romance is born from their mutual ashes. A story of self-realization, autonomy, and light BDSM, vampire-style, because Faerun lacks good therapists.In three parts.
Relationships: Astarion (Baldur's Gate)/Original Character(s), Astarion (Baldur's Gate)/Original Female Character(s), Astarion/Charname (Baldur's Gate), Astarion/Female Charname (Baldur's Gate)
Series: Broken Bits: A Love Story [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170155
Comments: 60
Kudos: 26





	1. Prologue:  Damnation

**Author's Note:**

> Images: https://msaditu.livejournal.com/20572.html
> 
> The Playlist is here, if anyone wants a fast link to the music. I'm just using it so I don't throw any repeats.  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5phNAYOAEA1g4rL9OD7hvl?si=a8176139c3034544

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Part 3!
> 
> First several chapters are written again, we'll see how that goes for posting.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC. No thanks to me for forgetting to add all of my intro stuff here. :D
> 
> Adding a little Muse to our playlist. "Starlight," courtesy of Spotify.

I blink my eyes open, but they fight it.

_My God, that smell._

I hear a soft, feminine grunt.

I fight to focus, as I realize I absolutely cannot not move at all. _Where the hell . . . ?_

The light hurts my eyes a bit, bright but sickeningly red. I look around and see the circular room lined with open pods . . . and the nursery for the horrid little brain things in the center, open to the air.

 _Oh, shit. I’m on the nautiloid? And if I’m on the_ nautiloid _, then there are . . ._

Across from me is Lae'zels face, and the horror that is a mind flayer is forcing the parasite into her eye. It's terrible, it’s so disgusting, and she cries out in pain and disgust. 

I let my head fall back for a moment. _Fucking vampires - it had to have known how this would go._ I swear, I could not be anymore sick with half-truths and bullshit.

 _This shit even has_ me _lying like a fucking rug!_

The squid-thing turns back to the pool, tentacles waving, alien orange eyes glowing in the dimness. I try my damndest to squirm out of the weirdly squishy pod-thing, but it is mostly so I can say I tried. Obviously if Lae’zel can’t free herself, I am completely screwed.

I know it's coming, but there is no way to prepare for the approach of the monster with the grotesque squirming thing held in its fingers. “Goddammit! Stay the actual fuck away from me!” I turn my head away, but the thing holds me still with its . . . mind? Magic? _Ugh!_

 _Holy fuck._ I force Rion’s face into the front of my mind, the last moment before we came through the portal. I can still feel the basement floor under my feet, cold and smooth. I concentrate on the feel of him as I pulled him to me when we slipped into the light.

_I have to, lover, I'm so sorry to add to our issues like this. I'm coming, though, so fucking hold on._

Still, all the reasoning in the world does not prevent the scream of my mind as the nasty thing moves inexorably to my eyeball. I fight to let out that scream through my paralyzed throat, but I can do nothing but remain still as the tiny horror burrows its way in. 

I feel it wriggle, and I want to retch. _Ohgodohgodohgod._ I feel the thing moving in there, fighting for space somewhere it was never meant to go. _Oh, God, my fucking head . . ._

Helpless and filled with rage, I fight the thing without any success. Of course I don’t - and that this is apparently what the vampire knew would happen sent another wave of anger and hatred writhing through me like the goddamned worm. _Fuck him too, actually!_

I accomplish nothing, of course - instead, I start losing consciousness. 

The last thing I see as everything goes black is the tentacled horror floating from the room.


	2. Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the first day of the rest of our protaganist's life, everybody. We're in the present tense - finally.
> 
> Her journey's starting exactly as well as you'd expect.
> 
> Uploaded a couple screenshots of our chick for those interested.  
> https://msaditu.livejournal.com/20805.html
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Larian and WotC, and again to AlanaSP for the Customizer mod. Lathanyll's hair is en pointe.
> 
> The playlist add for this chapter is "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, courtesy of Spotify, cuz we deserve it for dealing with all this stress.

When the battle starts, the scream of the dragon is our only warning before everything goes to . . . well, the _literal_ Hells. 

I can’t rest - I’m upright, the light is constant, irritatingly red, and alien - it's impossible to ignore. I swear I’ve spent hours now wishing I could talk to Lae’zel. I know it would not go well - I’m not even supposed to know _what_ she is, nevermind start passing the time about how much mind flayers suck and swapping put-downs of each other's noses.

_Wonder how long I have to wait before we can share a beer?_

_Also, if anyone wonders, I have a parasite in my fucking brain. It isn’t even moving right now, and I still want to jam a barbecue skewer in there._ I shudder in revulsion.

 _My nose itches._ _Great._

Out of nowhere, the scream of a wyrm echoes outside the walls of the ship. Lae’zel’s head jerks sideways with a feral grin. 

_Thank God, this ride is almost over - the sooner I get out of here, the sooner I can find him._

It immediately gets a helluva lot rougher, shaking us in the pods as the mind-flayers try to escape their gith pursuit. I’m all for them getting crushed, I’d just prefer not to be crushed _with_ them.

With a sudden wrenching jerk, the side of the nautiloid rips off with a screech. My head is thrown painfully sideways without a way to brace myself. _Hey, assholes - your fucking pods are not doing shit to protect your investments._

Freezing air tears into the room, leaving what appears to be an actual wound in the side of the ship. _Things are actually spurting . . . ungghh . . . this is far more disgusting in person._ Dragon fire rips into the room, tearing apart Lae'zels pod and throwing her to the ground. Flames catch and lick at the walls, the empty pods. 

Lae’zel drags herself up, moving toward the tear. Together, she and I watch the Hells stream past, the dance of the dragon riders, and the streams of imps harrying the nautiloid and its denizens. The shrieks of devilkin ring in my ears.

_Huh, it really does smell like sulfur. Well, that's fucking awful._

_I wonder if she would itch my nose._

I fight to break from the pod as the nautiloid tries to shake itself apart, but it has me stuck fast. _Dammit_. _Hope you’re awake up there, Baby-Jumpscare, you’re supposed to keep my ass alive. And don’t touch nothin’ - if we_ don’t _all die, I’d like to still remember my parents._

Another wrenching turn grabs the ship, and it feels like we dive downwards. My head slams against the back of the holding pod. This time, no voices come from the blackness, only oblivion. 

* * * * *

I come to with a screaming headache, and flames licking at my boots. 

_What the hell, why is everything on fire?_ I push myself to my feet, nearly falling again from the nautiloid’s turbulence. I take a moment to let my thoughts order themselves. _Ah, yes, I’m on the nautiloid, I’m now infected with a fucking parasite, and I’ma dream-slug Rion’s skeevy fucking vampire in the goddamned teeth._

_Also, if anyone’s forgotten, there’s a worm in my head. Bleegggh._

As expected, the other pods are now empty. _Thanks for nothing, guys - I’m looking at you, Gale._

Quick inventory, then. My clothes are unfamiliar - a lovely red doublet with gilded trim, actual pants, well-fitted leather boots. A strange flute hangs at my belt beside a scroll and some small vials - concerned, I take a moment to think about the instrument. I’ve been given a decent knowledge of the finger positions, thank God. It’s no keyboard, but it will do.

And my hair - it's so long that it's caught in a tie at my _waist_ , and it's laced with braids and little metal filigrees. _Holy shit, nice._

I’m also armed - I pull the rapier from my belt. It’s shiny steel and deadly sharp, but thankfully light. It doesn't feel particularly comfortable in my hand, but I don’t plan on getting close to anything that wants me dead. There’s a bow slung over my back - I can’t shoot the damned thing anyway, so I toss it into the closest fire. _Dibs on the first crossbow, Lae._

I’m struggling to readjust my mental map of the nautiloid into a useful three-dimensional feel for the ship. Everything is terribly strange yet eerily familiar. It is incredibly disorienting. Foul smoke burns my lungs, and the entire place smells like nothing so much as rotten seafood. It's terribly hot, and the floor has a spongy texture that turns my stomach. _Where’s my Rion - everything here so far blows, and I have earned some eye candy._

Across the way, I see the dead mindflayer; I carefully pick my way through the room, scaling the ramps on each side to retrieve the stashed items.

I’ve been putting it off, but finally I approach the tadpole pool. Such tiny things, but so very much bad news. It’s brittle, on the edge of falling down. In a fit of pique, I bring the rapier down as hard as I can. The explosion throws me back several feet, but it is totally worth it. 

_Fuck all ya'll. Consider this the first volley of the war, you wizard fuckers behind this shit._

So, the final test. 

I catalogue all the little hurts - my probable concussion, my poor eyelid, the burns on my hand and cheek from the tadpole nursery exploding - seems a good time to find this magic before I have to try to kill something. 

I feel around for a difference. There's a blank spot in my head behind my eye . . . _Hello, little creep . . ._ I take a deep breath and I think I find _something_. It feels like a . . . tiny pilot light that wasn't there before, but I can’t seem to get a grip on it. _Oh wait._

I hum softly, a melody coming to me without effort as I think of _pulling_ that small light around me, relieving pain and damage. Just that easily, blue healing light slides over me, following the path of my request. A moment of . . . pins and needles? The tingle of Novacaine? 

That fast, the pains are gone. I take a step, and nausea still assaults me - okay so, point to Shadowheart, head wounds _are_ tricky. I'm not bitching, this is still awesome. 

_Insane, seriously._

I am feeling the pull of that little pilot light, however, a payment in energy and awareness. _Okay, creepy blue alien font thing, you're up._ Even knowing what it is, the enormous tentacle thing is imposing. I reach out my hand, and it seeks me out in return, _connecting_ with me and taking away the small pull on my energy. 

_Well, hell, it's the ship, and it's kinda . . . sentient? Welcome to_ Farscape, _I guess._

Recovered fully, I can feel that there are options for me that are less friendly - angry mockery, beacons help the others attack. Not everything is for medicinal purposes, however, I sense that I’m going to need more focus. _I really am going to be playing an instrument in a battle sometimes . . . so strange, but I love it!_

It has been a few minutes while I figure out, well, pretty much everything about my physical presence in Faerun. I hate that it is taking more time, but much better I know and don’t need it. Now, though, I’m going to have to do the thing I’ve been dreading - I’m going to go loot the dead people. _Gross._

The mind flayer sits in a pool of silvery goo, and I have no interest in touching any part of it. I look first, carefully - it has a small pouch with a potion and a strange pod. _Good enough, I ain’t touching anything else._ I follow the same process with the other humanoid above. _Going forward, somebody else is doing this, I just don’t care._

I have to move on, but I’m not exactly thrilled about having to engage with any monsters. Yesterday, I was worrying about my new credit card bill, which was still totally worth it, and today I’m going to try to steal a crossbow from a dead imp. _That’s me, keeping things fresh._

_You know what else is fresh? Having a tadpole in your head. Still gross, too._

No time like the present. I approach the weird door valve, and it opens as expected. I look to see if something nasty is going to drip into my hair but despite the fleshy looking textures, it all seems pretty uninteresting overall. I move out of the nursery, keeping an eye just in case. My first item of business is to seek the mind flayer scrolls from the sciencey . . . room. If I'm going to try to fit in, to be Baldurian, I damned well better know something about it. 

_~We’re here . . . we’re trapped! ~_

For the moment, I ignore the small voice of Us, instead grabbing the first scroll and letting the knowledge seep into my brain. It feels really strange, but I pick up some information, thankfully. I sift through the basic stuff - taverns, customs, streets. Hopefully it’s enough to convince his vampiric highness - the last thing I need is him getting pissed the minute I find him.

_~ Help us . . . ~_

I carefully look over the dead imps on the floor, using careful hands to avoid touching any body parts, relieving them of a scroll and little healing potions they carried on their belts. The other two scrolls are on the other table - I read them both. _Goblins, Gith . . . okay, yeah, so the Gith have some . . . issues. Lae, you need to lose these guys like a bad habit._

_~ Help us, we are trapped ~_

“Oh, for God’s sake, I’m coming - shut it!” The little voice stops at my loud complaint, thankfully. I totally plan to go rescue the intellect devourer, I just know that it’s going to be incredibly gross, and I’m afraid I’m going to throw the hell up. 

Still, I know damned well how powerful it is, even as a newborn, and since I’m currently playing for keeps, it’s probably best to do whatever I can to not get capped.

_I'm coming, you creepy little thing. Speaking of creepy little things - ugh, tadpole._

It is becoming obvious that functioning with the tadpole in my head is going to be a problem for my obsessive brain. _Oh, and I don’t have any of my medications either. I can tell moving to Faerun doesn’t cure OCD - let’s hope it does a better job with anxiety._

 _Then again,_ I hit the weird orange button to raise the elevator (OSHA be damned with your handrails, pfft!), _maybe I need anxiety here. That’s . . . new. Suddenly my brain has a purpose?_

The operating area is even more disgusting in person. Red light from the brain jars pours over everything, and the gurgling and churning noise mixes poorly with . . . nausea. The floor is sticky.

The poor man's body, draped across a . . . operating table _thing . . ._ twitches, blood runs down the pedestal, drips onto the floor around him. I swallow hard, breathing as shallowly as I possibly can. _Don’t faint, don’t faint. It’s fake blood, a fake ship, and a fake concussion._

"Yes! You’ve come to save us from this place, from this place you’ll free us!” 

The brain actually quivers excitedly, and it’s that little wiggle that finally gets me. _Ohhh God . . . not fake enough! Mayday!_

I take a few running steps away from the brains and the table as the nausea finally wins - I had managed nearly 40 years of life without seeing the insides of people, and I had been ready to live the next 40 the same damned way.

“Please, before they return. They return!”

I return to the dying dude, because what the hell else am I going to do? It’s not like I’m going back after going through all of this shit to get here. "Settle down. No offense, but I’m not much of a surgeon." 

"Remove us from this body - from this case free us. Please!" A tear trickles down the man’s face, the fear from the creature giving off emotional responses in the body.

_I can't believe I'm actually going to touch this thing, I can't even watch medical procedures._

Despite my complete aversion to the visuals, and the fucking smell, my medicine perk comes through like a champ. _It's swelled against the skull, I can see it._

Somehow, I convince myself to slide my fingers gently between the brain and it's casing. If I pretend really hard, I can imagine that it's just rubber and resin, a really good Halloween decoration for the truly depraved. It pulls out with a weird sucking noise and I set it down directly, mostly so I don’t have to see it jump.

The legs and tentacles come out now that it has space. My plan is to just not look at it anymore than I have to. “We are free. Our freedom is ours. Friend.”

I had forgotten that Us is going to immediately reach out to the tadpole, so when the damned thing _squirms,_ I nearly lose it. “Ugh!”

Us, of course, has no hang ups about it at all. “We must go to the helm. At the helm we are _needed.”_

“You know where it is, right?” It is almost exactly like talking to a dog, except that the dog talks back, and it’s an exposed brain. I consider for a moment, and then continue. “What should I call you?” _Must observe the niceties, let’s not get burned as a witch or killed by our psychotic little pet on day one._

“Us. We are _Us.”_

“Okay, lead the way, Small Fries.”

“To the helm we go! We are going to the helm!” Us bounds out the door to the balcony - its exuberance _is_ a little cute, even if it is a grotesque killer brain baby. So far, everything about this little hiatus has been a trip down Phobia Lane. _If anyone wonders, yes, I’m afraid of heights, too. I’m not really looking forward to sky-diving, frankly._

I try not to look down, but the wind blows my hair, and I can see impossible things flying past us in my peripheral vision. Somehow, I manage to put one foot in front of the other - Rion’s on the other side of all of this. If he made it through 200 years of hell, at least I can fight through my squeamishness and vertigo.

Lots and lots of vertigo.

The jump is almost beyond me, and Us bounces up and down with impatience. “I’m going, just a little nervous.”

“Safe. It is safe!” It flies over the gap, facing my direction once it’s across. _I wonder why - it doesn’t even have eyeballs._

I take a deep breath and take the jump at a bit of a run. Thankfully, my body seems to be aware of what needs to happen, and I hit the other side, stable and alive. No time to relax, of course; I can already feel Lae’zel’s eyes on me.

I move fast, keeping as close to the side of the nautiloid as I can. When she jumps from cover, I’m already holding myself steady with a hand on its shell. _Look at me, being all badass._

“Abomination! This is your end!” _Wow, she really is striking in real life._

That’s all the time I have before the tadpoles connect, and it really is a dreadful thing to experience. I feel like someone set off one of those damned clanging cymbal monkeys up there, except instead of cymbals they gave it a frigging taser. The electricity shoots all the way to my extremities. 

Her thoughts cycle through me, but instead of a nice comfortable stream of words, it’s some crazy technicolor acid trip of visions - dragons, silver swords, her hottie girl-crush, the Queen. Then myself - my first chance to see my character. _I really am me._

“My head. What is this . . . _nghh.”_

She gives me the most intent look when the visions clear - I wonder what the hell she sees. _Yeah, I'm just really like, creative and shit. Definitely not something to burn at the stake!_

 _“Tsk’va._ You are no thrall.” Her eyes light, fire coming back into her expression. “Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive.”

I nod, hopefully it appears helpful and friendly. She’s a bit . . . reactionary.

“Imps block the path forward. You will assist me in destroying them - we must reach the helm before we _transform.”_

 _Staying in character . . ._ “Who are you?”

“Who am I? Your only chance of survival. And you mine, though it pains me to say it.”

“The little intellect devourer is already leading me that way, we’re in.”

She gives a nod, command heavy in her gesture. “First we exterminate the imps. Then we find the helm and take control of the ship. As for _that_ thing,” she looks at Us, “it will remain tame as long as it believes we are thralls. It may be useful in the fight to come.”

“You lead - I lack a ranged weapon, but I have this.” I grin and wave my flute.

Lae’zel scowls but goes in at a run with Us right behind her. I give the flute a whirl, throwing a single high note that pains my ears. Still, it works as I intended - the purple sparkle of faerie fire catches the first imp, although it is still as quick as hell. Fast as it could move, it shoots one of the purple lamps, which explodes into a ball of fire. 

“Gah!” Lae’zel yells as it catches her in the face, jumping back out of the flames. I don’t know for certain that she needs it, but I hum that same melody and give her healing anyway. She tosses a grateful look my way , then jumps over the flames to the very top of the storage crates in front of us.

As the flames die down, my small, creepy, death-toddler runs at the imp that tried to kill it, snapping its tendril at the offending creature. It dies in one hit, dropping like a sack of potatoes. 

“Nice shot, Tiny!” It bounces happily at the encouragement. _This place is so fucking weird._

I grab one of the scrolls I had looted from the first room - I’m not sure how it works, but a firebolt has to do something, right? _See, look at me not being totally useless._ While I’m pulling it open, Lae’zel smashes her longsword against the imp on the platform. When it doesn’t die, she lets out a yell of fury, grabbing the thing and throwing it all the way to the ground.

_Remind me not to get on her bad side._

I _pull_ the strange power from the scroll, feeling it tingle in my hand. I see if I can throw it, and it works like a dream. A streak of heat and flame careens toward the downed monster, lighting it on fire and killing it instantly. “Ha!” _Yeah, baby._

Both Us and Lae’zel immediately focus on the next one, and I shelve my moment of Zen to help. Us quivers as it runs, so excited that it misses the next imp by a mile. Lae’zel already has it sighted - an arrow flies true and buries itself in the tough skin. 

I had waited to see if she killed it before doing anything further. It did not die, so I let the magic guide my fingers on the flute as a terribly evil whispering noise surrounds the last flying creature. I try not to notice the look on its horrid little face when it dies.

As I had hoped, the second imp was armed with a nice, light crossbow and a quiver of bolts. “I’ll go ahead and take that.” I sight down its length - now _this_ I got. Once again, I look over the dead creatures littering the room, realizing that I would rather touch dead people than try to tell Lae’zel what to do.

 _Wisdom, there._ “The blue light thing heals us.” I point my finger at the font.

Lae nods and moves to the thing, letting it flow over her. Her face is surprised - I suspect that she had avoided everything that had looked even slightly _ghaik_ since she had been freed.

Us, of course, had already loped across the room and taken its power . . . waiting for its two companions like a puppy waiting to go for a walk. I join them, feeling my energy lift once again. I look up the stairs at the battle taking place on the deck.

_Yeah, this is going to suck too._

On the bright side, I’m one step closer to throwing a holy spell in Cazador’s smug face, so there’s that.

  
  



	3. Downed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to send our protaganist after some bad guys to see if they beat her face.
> 
> Let's hope not.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC
> 
> Playlist add is the cover of "House of the Rising Sun" by Five FInger Death Punch, courtesy of Spotify.

To be honest, I just want to run my ass past everything on this entire ship, let things fall where they may, and go find Rion. Bad gamer habits die hard.

What I’m _actually_ doing is debating whether or not to mercy kill the poor lost thralls while Lae’zel glares at me in frustration. If he’s real, then they’re all real. _Fuck._

“Leave them - you cannot help them.”

To remind, I’m here because I made a deal with the dream representation of a vampire curse so I could lie to my vampire elf boyfriend. By default, however, I’m still the moral compass for this little group. Lae’zel would take someone’s head off for three bucks and a mint, and Us is a murder-baby. 

“Fine.” I can see how this is going to go from here - I’m going to run into decision paralysis, and die of a heart attack before we make the druid enclave.

Lae'zel nods in approval. “Very well. We will try to work our way past the creatures on the upper deck . . . what?”

I raised my hand while she was talking. “They’re all going to attack us. We need to send Us up, and then kill them from a distance.”

I can tell she doesn’t want to listen to me by the way her lips purse. Instead of waiting, I just gesture to the stairs, and Us takes off with the joyful energy of a tarantula hunting its dinner. Once it was in motion, the decision was made - thankfully Lae’zel is also a practical sort.

She took off for the stairs, and I moved to follow her and our small bouncy brain up the stairs. I took two steps out from under the platform, and I am hit in the back by what feels like the sting of a bee roughly the size of a VW. 

"Shit!" 

The upper intellect devourer had slipped down from the top behind me and did some real damage. I can hardly move. 

Our brainy companion streaks past me to intercept the thing, and I fumble at my belt for a potion. I finally get it released in time to see an arrow fly past my ear. 

_Thank God._ I tip the small vial back, and cessation of pain slides through me. I move the hell behind my companions. 

Us squeals as the other monster attacks, and it responds with an angry lash in return. Lae'zel hammers the thing with her sword, slicing it cleanly in half. 

A string of thralls come after us, clearly random people who had been snatched from their lives. It is sickening to see them get cut down, but they leave us no choice. One of them manages to get past Lae'zel and Us, running at me with a raised dagger. 

I don't want to, but I raise my rapier and drive it into her heart. She goes limp, but the expected emotion does not enter her eyes - she was long gone before I killed her. 

I grab her dagger in the brief moment of peace, along with the small pouch at her waist. 

The others are already moving to imps further along the top deck. Feeling useless and still upset at the woman's blood on my weapon, I follow them and pick up what items I can from the bodies around us, becoming rapidly inured to the practice. 

Clearly, pride has no place in Faerun. 

Lae takes out one of the monsters with a wide sweep of her blade, but the one being chased by Us backs out of reach above a line of flame. 

I have no compunction at target practice on imps. I pull out my crossbow, sighting its wing. I release the bolt, and it flies true, dumping the creature into one of the deck fires. It screeches, but it's silenced quickly by Us. 

I see Lae'zel relieve the first of a second crossbow, dumping her shortbow at her feet. She looks at me, and I see the first recognition of partnership on her face. 

She walks to the mage lying on the ground writhing in confused pain, and shoots him point blank with the crossbow. He collapses, finally, into peace. Without looking up, she heads down the stairs to do the same with the others. 

She returns as I add another scroll and potion to my bag, handing me two more small pouches and a small purse without a word. I add them to my belt as well. 

I head across the deck to the tunnel that will take us to Shadowheart and the helm, Us at my heels. 

"The way is blocked, but we are close." Lae'zel pulls out her sword, approaching the frankly gooey-looking membrane that covers the way forward. I try not to notice the look of exposed muscle that covers the walls. She slices the thing down the center - unlike in the game, it doesn't disappear, it just hangs there. 

The others pass through it without much reaction. I push it out of my way, cringing at the damp feel of what I can only describe as a "flesh curtain." _Ugh._

It's not cold, it clearly is a piece of something alive, which makes it _so_ much worse. 

_Double ugh for emphasis - the githyanki have a point about ending the squid. What the actual hell is with your decor choices, mind-flayers?_

Red light greets us from in the room where the squiddie freaks are holding Shadowheart. Lae'zel grabs my arm. " _Istik_ \- back! Touch nothing without knowing its purpose!" 

I raise my hands in silent surrender. _Settle the hell down, Lae._ I realize then how young she is, despite her tough demeanor. I hadn't noticed into now that she spent the great majority of the game scared shitless. 

_More human than some of the humans._

"Help me!" Shadowheart yells from her pod, within the swirling red runes of the lock spell. 

I gesture at the still figures on the operating table things. _Going forward, I think I best give Lae something useful to do._

The weird idea of me being in charge is frankly mind-numbing. 

I don't look as she mercy kills the poor patients, because I don't want to see it. I'm not leaving anyone here if I don't have to. 

"You! Get me out of this damn thing!" 

I take a moment to examine the warding runes, although I know I can do nothing for her. "I can't open it with the runes." 

Lae'zel has finished her grim duty and returns to my side. "We do not have time for stragglers." She leans down and grabs the backpack set beside the pod. 

Shadowheart is pounding on the glass, desperately. _Fine, I'll be stupid if it satisfies you._

I reach my hand out to the runes, and the shock snaps through me. 

The trapped priestess reacts with desperation. "What? That can't be! There has to be another way! Please!" 

"Are you satisfied? We need to go." 

I nod to Lae'zel as Us pipes in. "We must get to the helm! Safe if she stays. Safe if we go!" 

Recalling how shitty it seemed to leave her without a gesture, I place my hand on the glass and make eye contact. She is terrified. 

"If I find something, I will come back - either way, I must get us out of the Hells." 

She puts her hand in the glass, a moment of human contact that she clearly had not expected. I turn away, stalking over to the table with the little chest. I stuff it into the backpack along with the other items - it's light, and I can't cart off all the barrels on the beach for storage in real life. _So . . . fuck it._

I loop the backpack over my shoulders. Even though I know there is only the dead priest and the poor, doomed woman in the pod, I go to the left door first. I can't know too much, so I need Lae'zel to see the insta-ceremorphosis herself. 

The room is silent but for the scurrying intellect devourer. The rows of pods in the room are overwhelming standing beneath them. Lae'zel misses nothing, as expected. 

" _Tsk'va!_ How many hosts have these _ghaik_ infected?" 

"Too fucking many." 

She grunts in agreement. 

I pretend to read the writing over the Big Button of shitty things to do to somebody. _I really don't want to do this!_

"It says "Perfect." I look at her, and reach out to push it.

She hears the change, and moves around to see the woman transform into a monster. I hear her curse under her breath, but I don't wait. I slip up to relieve the priest of his items. 

I stop for one moment. He is completely drained, and blood has run everywhere. _If Astarion didn't know that he could drink from a thinking being, who the fuck killed this guy?_

I file it away, knowing we need to move on. I don't look at the new mind-flayer in the pod. _I'm sorry._

We return to the red room, and I see Shadowheart looking at me with hope. I shake my head, and gesture to the next room, following in Lae'zel's wake. 

_I won't be back, but I'll see you with the druids. Stay safe, chickie._

We enter the antechamber, and we each take a moment to let the blue light refresh us. I shake my head at the brain aquariums - I wonder if it's some horrible version of squid hydroponics. _Ya'll are horrible, just so you know._

Lae'zel takes a moment before entering the center room of the ship. "We are nearing the helm. Once inside, do as I say." 

I nod, and she strides into the room. 

Inside, chaos reigns. Mind-flayers struggle with cambions, dodging attacks from the air by imps streaming toward their heads. Bodies are strewn across the floor - it is clear that the fighting here had been heavy. 

We make it just in time to watch a cambion get its neck broken fighting the tentacles of a mind-flayer, and an imp fly in from above to take it out in return. 

"Throw their corpses in the Styx!"

The commander of the demon forces fights another mind-flayer, purple magic twinkling around him to little effect. The demon's sword, however, does not have that problem, and the mind-flayer falls back. 

"Thrall! Connect the nerves of the transponder. We must escape. Now!" 

Lae'zel's voice breaks through, a low hiss. "Do it. We will deal with the _ghaik_ after we escape."

I give her a confirming nod as the damned commander's attention falls on our arrival. "We'll move together - first one to the helm, get us the hell out of here!" 

The demon's voice booms across the room. "Kill them all or Zariel will have your heads!" 

The imps turn toward us immediately, and Lae'zel is there to meet them. The wide swipe of her sword nearly cleaves one in half, but it turns at the last minute. I follow up with a bolt to its face. 

A streak of fire slides past Lae'zel as she ducks, and Us goes after the offending imp, it's viciousness increased with proximity to its master. A fireball flies at the frenzied intellect devourer, but it shrugs off the missle, and takes out the imp in a single swipe. 

_Holy shit, Squirt._ "Way to go, buddy!" _That's me, the proud parent of a killer, brain monster._ The evil little thing bounds past the two center combatants, chasing down another imp in the forward section by the helm. 

Lae'zel huffs loudly at my yell, pointing me at the last of the imp vanguard, then following Us toward the front. 

I reach down for that tiny magic spark, sounding that same discordant note on the flute. The terrible whispers assault the remaining imp. It screams and collapses. 

_For the record, death music is both more and less awesome than it sounds._

I take a moment to steal the leather armor off the guy on the floor, rolling it up and cramming it into the bag. The other two are already killing off more imps, but Us struggles to get to the farthest one. 

_I got you._ I burn the last bit of magic with another horrible note, and the imp hits the floor. To my left, I see the mind-flayer stumble. _Oh, shit._ "Lae'zel, go!" 

She doesn't hesitate for a moment, firing off a bolt at her imp and throwing herself toward the front. When it turns to chase her, I take my shot. It turns its attention to me just as Us slams it to the ground. 

Lae'zel connects the transponder just as an enormous red dragon lets loose a ball of fire. It knocks her back, and I'm struck for a moment by the ridiculous destructive power of the damned thing. 

The disco colors of the portal streak past and the dragon falls back, but I see Lae'zel fight her way to the mechanism as the nautiloid careens to the side. I'm thrown against the wall, but Lae'zel is always badass - she connects the tendrils, and we jump away from Avernus. 

Still, the dragon's damage did its work - we are going down. I slide toward the hole in the side of the nautiloid, grabbing on mere feet from the mind-flayer. 

_I know what's next, and I'd like to opt out please!_

I flip off the squiddie bastard as the side falls off and takes me with it. I refuse to look, my eyes squeezed shut tight. Either the magical mystery worm saves me, or it does not. 

I suddenly come to a stop upside down, and I let out the breath I was holding. Gold light surrounds my head like a nimbus. I have only a moment to marvel at the magic before it dumps my ass on the beach. 

_Ouch._

For a moment, I just lay there, safe on blessed ground that wasn't flying and wasn't _fucking alive._ I let the sound of water soothe my brain for a moment. 

_Oh. I still have to find this stupid campsite - no clue how the hell I'm supposed to do that._

_Fine, I'm up!_

It's a mess, is what it is. Huge octopus tendrils are draped everywhere, half of them on fire. 

I can see the first of the splattered fishermen several feet away. _Poor guy._ Still, it reminds me that I need to grab the food and water before I head up to Rion's cliff path. No grocery stores here. 

I drag myself to my feet, picking up the apple the man dropped when he fell. I check the barrels as I head down the beach, tripping on a small bit of driftwood. I head for the destroyed dock, past the first tide pool. 

Thankfully, everything is where I remember it - the backpack with bread and cheese and water, a bit of gold - even the book of sea shanties. 

Another dead fisherman lays beside a intellect devourer - I wonder which one of them is Us. _Gross, psychotic, but bouncy._

I pull out one of the scrolls I'd found in the red room and a void sphere thing. I creep as quietly as I can toward the first of the two mindflayers between Rion and me. 

_Coming, dear . . . Just gotta throw this here baseball and cast a little magic, and I'll be there . . ._

I whip the thing at them as hard as I can, watching with a grin as chaos explodes and they smash into each other. 

_Directly._

I pull the scroll open as quickly as possible, taking the close one down with the handy Arms of Hadar spell. The other recovers and locates me immediately. 

_Shit! Shit shit shit . . ._

I yank out my loaded crossbow, shoot the thing, and then run like hell. I know it is chasing me, but I stop at the edge of the rock formation, jamming in and firing off another bolt. 

Of course, it goes wide. 

I pelt at top speed toward the water, loading as I go. I'm not fast enough - I hear claws scraping for purchase on the loose sand. At the last second, I dive to my left, wrenching my side. A wicked tentacle smashes into the sand where I had been a moment before. 

I line up my shot from the ground and pull the firing mechanism, up close and personal. The thing drops like a rock. 

Breathing hard, adrenaline kicking through me like a shot of espresso. I take a moment, dropping flat on the sand. 

_Holy hell. Holy. Hell. Bad idea. Should have gotten Shadowheart._

When I can keep my hands steady, finally, I drag myself upright again. 

_One. More. C'mon, self, you're so close._

I look through what I still have for items in the backpack - a few more of the mind-flayer projectiles . . . a Mage Armor . . . and a small bottle which I recognize as the same alchemist's fire that burned my patio. 

I stuff everything else back in, creeping toward the nautiloid again. Having given up entirely on my squeamish feelings about bodies, I slip a purse and a couple of pouches from the last of the poor fishermen. 

_Sorry, gents, peace and all that._

I slip quietly up onto the shelf overlooking the floor of the crash. The third little asshole is there, rifling through the ruins. I close my eyes for a moment . . . and then throw the bottle at the thing's feet. 

It explodes as perfectly as it could have, catching the thing in the conflagration. It doesn't have time to find me before it is dead. 

_Okay._

I take a couple minutes to clean out the mind-flayer storage chest and to take a few more items from the dead squids and their nobleman victim. 

_I'm actually nervous. Huh._

I walk calmly out of the nautiloid, and I head up the hill. 

  
  
  
  
  



	4. Dagger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here we are . . . Most of the first few chapters are written, they just need updated for the few narrative updates and, well, a lotta personality.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC.
> 
> Add for the playlist this chapter is "Behind Blue Eyes," by Limp Bizkit, for a few reasons. Courtesy of Spotify . . . next chapter that's 40 songs if anyone is counting. O.O

He waits for her impatiently, irritation brushing at the edges of his flawless artifice. 

_A remnant of nerves, nothing more._

_But she seems familiar, doesn't she . . . how she moves . . ._

"Please! Come help me!" Astarion calls as she comes within reach of his voice. He knows she was on the ship and wandering with the other thralls. One way or the other, he is going to figure out what’s going on. "Come over here, I need help!"

 _I mean, you do, but not with the damned pig._ I can’t hold in a small smile. _You are the most adorable, sneaky jerkwad on two goddamned planets._

Now that we come to it, I have so many worries and doubts. At some point, I'm going to have to come clean about letting a killer bug into my very real human head, and the camp is going to explode with one very pissed off vampire. 

I hate him being upset - I extra-hate him upset with _me._

"Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered." She increases her speed up the path, but she looks as blithe as a spring day with butterflies. Her behavior does not reflect anything of what they have been through. 

_Either she is insane or she tries to throw me off - no idea that I’m onto her. She is not concerned about the intellect devourer, proof of her complicity._

_Is it?_

It’s amusing that he thinks there is anywhere else I’d go. _Coming, lovely. Keep those sexy pants on, but I mean, only if you really wanna._

I pull the crossbow from my back, debating on whether I should let him take me down. All signs point to “yes,” because it's just so damned hawt. I am not convinced I get to decide on Perception saves, but if I get a vote, I'm in for a little vamp-handling. 

I come around the curve of the path, and there he is, whole and hale, in this strange place, the smoking mind-flayer pod next to him. That horrible outfit notwithstanding, I have never seen such a welcome sight. Tousled silver curls, quick eyes, moonlight skin. Sleek, charismatic. 

I have to take a second to get a hold on my emotions. There’s missing someone, and then there’s everything over this last day. I feel the claws around my heart finally loosen. 

_Yeah, I’m good now, however this goes._

“Need a hand?”

Her tone is informal, her eyes overly warm. Astarion's doubt of her sanity is reinforced. She just doesn’t seem to grasp the danger they could still be in. He wonders for a moment if she’s going to be able to answer any questions about his kidnapping. 

"You said you cornered an intellect devourer?" Her eyes twinkled. 

"I - yes. It's there, in the grass." For a moment, he loses the scared voice, and the dark of his voice slides across my frayed nerves. He points to the shivering bush. "You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?" 

I have to hide a little internal preening. _Watching me were you, hottie? I mean,_ _I did kick their weasel asses solo. Kinda glad you were watching, really glad I didn't die._

Still, I have to play along - this is no time to convince him of anything. He's completely spun out and hungry besides. 

Our other companions are waiting, but I sense he could use some peace and quiet. _They'll wait until tomorrow, because fuck ‘em, just a little bit. Especially Gale, who left my ass to rot._

"Sure, I got you." I set my crossbow carefully, and I try to look fierce. I hear his soft step behind me. A shiver runs up my spine like the strike of a bell - he's so close, and I missed him so much. 

He approaches her while she concentrates her weapon on the moving brush. His knife is comfortable in his hand, his feet sure. He speaks into her ear, her scent oddly tantalizing. 

_I must feed soon. The Hunger has me on edge._

"There, can you see it?" His voice lowers, intimate and close. I missed this familiar timbre, like port wine and a good cigar. It's hard not to lean back into him. 

The poor spooked boar takes off, bounding across the path. I take a deep breath. 

And then he moves, fast and cunning, an arm around my throat. We hit the ground, and I realize that even now he is careful to take the brunt of the force, cradling my head from the impact. _Well you sneaky little sweetheart, you took care of us everytime we met you!_

We're locked together, the glittering dagger at my throat. He thinks I'm afraid. I think I missed these lovely eyes and his freckles. Oh and the little birthmark. And his lovely mouth. _Swoon._

He glares at her. "Shh, not a sound. Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours." She just isn’t reacting right - her heartbeat beat is steady, her breathing calm. He wonders if mind control prevents someone from being afraid.

His silken voice purrs, purposely choosing his most deadly tone. "Now, I saw you on the ship, didn’t I? Nod." 

My eyes soft, I nod at him. I do my best to look intimidated, but my body knows him too well. I want to close my eyes and just take him in. His look, however, lacks any softness. 

_I swear she is pretending to be afraid._

Astarion slides the knife a little closer, working to make his point more clear. He needs information, and he plans to kill her. Still, she's fully relaxed against his arm, as though she could remain there, content, for the next hour. "Splendid. And now you're going to tell me exactly what you and those tentacle freaks did to me." 

Her eyes cut into him, like she knows all the places his weaknesses hide. "No, my dear, you have it backwards, they snatched me up too." She reminds him for a moment of himself, a slip of a thing with a knife at her throat, charming and lovely to the end. 

_Lovely? I need to get a handle on myself, before she becomes a meal._

_That would be such a shame, wouldn't it?_

Aloud, he sharpens his tone. "I saw you scuttling about on the ship. You’re in league with them, aren’t you? Don’t lie to me! I -argh." He nearly drops his dagger as their minds connect. 

_He sees himself from another's eyes, a stream of still moments of grace, anger, joy, sadness. Nothing looks familiar, even the light itself seems changed. A vision of them entwined together, his fangs sinking into her softness while she trembles. And then the memory of the worm takes over._

I wince at the onslaught of his memories, the feeling of resigned misery makes everything gray. Anger at the hopelessness of his vision, the blackness over his mind, turns my stomach. _I'm looking out of unfamiliar eyes, prowling dark, busy streets. I try to hold the memory, but it fades to the worm. The light. The fear._

_Me too, Rion. Me too._

"What was that? What’s going on?" His lovely voice sounds suddenly overwhelmed. _Poor dear, today has been a real shit show for you. Don't worry, we got this._

"I don’t know, but something just connected us." Her voice is quiet and her eyes are haunted after they connect. Now that he's had a vision of them together, of her inviting his bite and his body into her, he has trouble not noticing her heat and softness beneath him. _What in the hells is going on?_

He pulls away from her abruptly, feeling the vampire's interest peak. That is the last problem he needs.

His head hurts from the mind connection. "It’s those tentacle monsters. Whatever they did - whatever they put in us - just created a connection." She just watches him silently, as though she's waiting for him to solve a puzzle she's already mastered. "You're not one of them. They took you too, I saw it during - whatever just happened." 

_Hehe, "saw-r it." Be more adorable, Rion - I'm so fucking glad to see you._

I get a little teary and have to blink them away as he pulls the dagger back, releasing me and standing. I rise and dust myself off, picking up the crossbow from where it fell. I can tell I'm going to get really sick of lugging these things around. 

Astarion's demeanor changes like the flip of a coin. He dons his infuriating fake smile - I have to fight not to poke at him. "And to think, I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards. Apologies."

At that, I finally lose my fight against my sense of humor and grin. Even being friendly, he still ensures I don't forget who I'm dealing with. _As if I could._ "Apology accepted. I might’ve done the same were the roles reversed." 

"Ah, a kindred spirit." His gestures are elaborate, he is clearly in his element for just a moment. "My name’s Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me." _Damn, he's hawt when he's stuck up._

"L-Lany. I was also taken in Baldur's Gate." _By which I mean the game._ I think fast, trying to remember anything I could. Hopefully, he doesn't take an interest in which taverns I played, because he knows way more than I.

"Is that so? We clearly move in different circles." He had hoped to discover an explanation for the growing feeling of familiarity, but he couldn't remember ever seeing her perform in Baldur's Gate. _This one, she's memorable - Szarr's people would have found her._

He changes the subject, carefully filing away information. He sets his hands on his hips. "So, do you know anything about these worms?" 

Her eyes go mysterious, for just a moment her steady eye contact cut away. _Interesting. I wonder if she feels this strangeness, too - perhaps it's the tadpoles._ "Yes, unfortunately. They’ll turn us into mind flayers." 

He blinks, for a moment losing his careful mask. "Turn us into – ha. Hahaha! Of _course_ it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect?" His laughter sounds manic, treading the line of madness. 

He pulls his composure together by the barest of strings. "Although it hasn’t happened yet. If we can find an expert – someone that can control these things – there might still be time." 

Well at least he'd come quickly to the sum of their situation. When he had asked me what I knew, I'd fought the urge to start bawling - and he'd immediately noticed. _Too fricking smart, this one. Time to jump the hell in._ "You should travel with me. Our odds are better together." 

He looks surprised at the offer. "You know, I was ready to go this alone, but maybe sticking with the herd isn’t such a bad idea." 

I accidently let slip a quiet snort at being referred to as part of the herd _. You adorable ass . . . "_ And you seem like a useful person to know. All right, I accept." He gives me the most gracious bow. "Lead on." 

He notices the laughter in her eyes when he refers to her as cattle, and he is confused why it didn't make her angry. She takes a moment to drop her pack to the ground, then yanks a second backpack out of it. It is tossed up to him, but she doesn't check to see if it was caught. 

_Of course it_ was _, but that was quite rude._

She gives no further comment, just heads for the farthest path into the wreckage. His eyes are again drawn to her neck, to her swaying hips. 

Suddenly, she raises a hand and hisses his name. "Astarion . . . There's people ahead in the wreckage, they are digging at something up there." She ducks down. 

The voices are panicked, they clearly have no idea what is happening around them. 

He follows her lead, moving low to the ground. "It's one of those monsters. Death is too good for it." Creeping ahead on silent feet, he pulls his bow from his back. She watches him as he lines up his shot, her eyes tracing his form. He takes a moment to gauge her interest, feigning care with his aim. A shiver runs down his back as the monster preens under her gaze. 

_We could take her now._

_What in the burning, bloody Hells is going on?_ Not once in two centuries has his vampire risen so quickly and with such demand. 

The bow gives a quiet twang and the arrow flies to its mark. 

Just as quickly, the enthralled people run away. She moves into the wreck. 

“Simpletons. The beast was half dead and they still bowed to its whims.” His voice is scornful, irritated. 

She looks up as she pulls a potion and a small gray stone from a pouch at its waist. She raises a brow as she hands him a Speed potion, clearly amused. “After what the mind-flayers did to us, we can’t can't say much.”

He looks at me like I'm the basest idiot. “We had worms forced into our skulls; we weren’t fawning over the bloody things. It’s not even remotely the same.”

I shrug, refusing to pick up his emotions and continue into a fight. “They’re just common folk. Have some sympathy.”

He scowls, his demeanor becoming a bit unsettled. “But that didn't save them, did it? And now you expect me to have _emotions_ about it?”

Inexplicably, she bursts out laughing. "Maybe start with neutrality, and we'll work up from there." 

He is hard pressed to not let a smile emerge. She yawns, wilting, beginning to sway on her feet. "Ah, Hell . . . I . . . I think I need to find somewhere to rest."

* * * * *

We wander for at least 20 minutes before finding the open space with fresh water that I recognize. I make a fire as well as I can, although it still looks a bit spindly to me. I used several sea shanties as tinder. 

We eat a cold meal, and I feel like a huge jerk when he forces a bite of food down, basically just for me. He is going to have to toss all those cookies, now. 

I think for a moment - _I'm not going to force him to eat_. _That's just rude._

"If you don't feel like eating, just put something in your pack for later. I won't be offended." I don't look up at him - best he thinks it was just an off-hand comment. 

I set out two bedrolls near the fire, longing for a bath and a warm drink. 

"So, we're resting here? Turning in for the night?" His face looks as though he was asked to sleep in a horse stall. Now that I know him, I realize this is his version of trying to put on a brave face and join in. He just isn't all that good at it. 

Fortunately, handling his moods is now right in my wheelhouse. "It is certainly going to be a challenge to sleep out in the open, but better out here away from those things that would hunt us. Still, it's not what I'm used to - I'm not sure how I will sleep, it's terrifying." I look around uncertainly, out at the dark. 

_There is nothing more confidence building than having someone depend on you._

His demeanor becomes the tiniest bit more open. "It's all a little new to me too, I admit. The night normally means bustling streets, bursting taverns. Curling up in the dirt and resting is . . . a little novel."

I try to give him an encouraging smile, but to be honest, I have to agree. "If by novel, you mean 'the actual worst.' I am exhausted, but I'm unnerved." That is completely true. 

"Perhaps I can help with that. I'm in no place to rest yet. Today has been a lot." _You ain't just whistling_ _Dixie. "_ I need some time to think things through. To process this." He gestures at his head, but I can see the half truths begin to proliferate. "You sleep, I'll keep watch."

"If you're sure. I'll be happy to split the watch if you change your mind." _No, I really wouldn't be._ "Thank you, Astarion. I'll sleep better for that." It is true - I still trust him as a stranger, even though I know there are dangerous things yet between us. 

His smile is feral, hungry. I try to hide the responding hunger in mine, dropping my gaze, but I think he sees it. Either way, his caramel smooth voice is dark. "The pleasure is all mine. Sweet dreams." 

_They will be of you if they are._

* * * * *

Astarion watches her sleep, crouching next to her. Her hair lays gently in its braids down her back, but her rest is light, discomforted. One hand rests against the small swell of her breasts, the other is thrown out like she is fighting off the mind-flayer in her sleep. 

_Why are you familiar? When I lost control of the vampire for just a moment, why did your eyes answer my hunger with need?_

He had rifled through the few things she had, but everything had been found items, nothing personal. _You lied about being a bard in Baldur's Gate - the flute is hardly used, your clothing new. Even without that, Szarr's people would know_ you _._

_Are you even from Baldur's Gate? Your heart raced when you said it. Did you lie about your name? You hesitated._

Her hand clenches suddenly, and she whimpers. He is ready to move if she wakes, but her eyes twitch instead and her hand makes a fist. He waits, but she does not relax, instead she fixes her jaw, as if she's bracing for something. 

He hears her heart pounding, the nightmare taking her fully into thrall. 

_I wonder._

He concentrates for a moment on the parasite, inviting it to connect again with the worm in her head. It twists in pleasure, a dreadful feeling, but Astarion knows dread and horror. It is an old friend. 

He rides with it as the worm connects with the mysterious "Lany." 


	5. Disarray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things that have been coming for a while - a lot of things.
> 
> Astarion's dream is changing. Feel free to review it in Pt. 1, it's been a while. 
> 
> Some wait for Chapter 8, the last of the pre-written chapters for Broken Bits. After that it's just ya'll and me.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Larian and WotC.
> 
> The add to our playlist for this chapter is "Smiling" by Alanis Morissette, courtesy of Spotify, and boy isn't it ever.
> 
> "Both sides are slippery and enticing  
> These are my places off the rails  
> And this, my loose recollection of a falling  
> I barely remember who I failed  
> I was just trying to keep it together"
> 
> -A. Morissette

_This is no dream in the middle place._

This dream is a nightmare, and it is in her memory, a new and greater Hell from where choice and control has flown. 

The mind-flayer is so close, the squirming tadpole held carefully between its fingers. Her eyes are paralyzed, she cannot even look away. She wants to turn, to scream at it to stop, because this isn't a game, it is real. 

_There is no turning back._

She fights the psychic hold the thing has on her, but she is like the mouse in the claw of the owl - helpless, trapped, desperate. Her heart races, the only piece of her allowed to struggle against what is happening. 

Suddenly his face is in her mind, a talisman to ward off the fear. He can almost hear the emotion, it is so strong, she's coming for him, she will not leave him to face this alone. The last emotion he senses before the terror takes over is the feeling of apology, clear as a crystalline bell. _I'm sorry, this isn't what I planned, your fight is my fight for real now._

She feels the thing, the wrongness, the persistence of its invasion. Her stomach turns as it writhes into her skull, pain and horror and then blackness. 

* * * * *

His parasite's grip fades, and he refocuses on the sleeping woman before him, the experience they shared of the tadpoles’ intrusion into their minds causes him to suffer as though it was newly done again. Tears streak her cheeks, but she finally lies still, clearly wrung out from her battle against her fear. 

He moves away from her then, silent, listening for anything that could threaten her rest. There is nothing but night sounds and stillness. 

He is confused, but a core of frustration and anger sits inexplicably in the center of everything. 

The monster is restless, knowing that he hunts in the woods, that he follows the guidance of Cazador's rules despite their distance from him. It does not wish yet another unsatisfying feeding, weak and flavorless, draining his strength. 

It wants the woman, and its aggression is growing.

He is restless as well, knowing that the human sleeping in his camp dreams of him. She dreams of a rescue he would deny needing should she ask. _A mortal, and a mortal human, no less._

It is offensive, condescending. _What is she planning to do exactly? Die early . . . as they do?_ _She lies to me._

_You traffic in lies, yet you declare yourself a judge of others?_

_They are not_ my _lies, damn you!_

_Which ones precisely?_

_Piss off._

He needs to locate prey, yet his focus is elsewhere, it turns over the puzzle in his mind, examining, trying to find the key that will turn the entire thing on its side. He despises this helpless feeling, the knowledge that he is a pawn in yet another game where information is denied him. 

_She undermines me, tries to slip between the cracks in my knowledge._

_You can make her your strength if you choose. You have seen it - she desires you, she desires . . . usssss._

_And when Cazador's command stops me short? When she becomes frightened and tries to escape? When I kill her because she ran, and my very nature demands that I do so?_

His thoughts are interrupted as a rustle comes to his ear further into the trees, and he lets the scent of the deer lead him to its resting place. He crouches some ways from where it shelters, hidden in the dappled moonlight through the trees. 

He is in no mood to spend time hunting tonight, to enjoy the chase and the suspense, to savor the speed and power that he conceals around skittish mortals. Instead, he is nervous leaving Lany in the camp alone. He is angry that it matters to him at all, but the protective urge is too strong to ignore. 

The deer settles again, and the insistent desire to return to the camp pricks at his patience like a dull needle. He does not take time to move in closer as he might do on other nights - he just attacks. His vampire speed catches the thing easily in its first bounds of flight, before it gains more than a few feet of distance. 

Frustration and emotional conflict makes him even more brutal tonight than normal, there is no gentleness or respect in him for the creature in his hands. He ignores its squealing and twists its neck without mercy. Its eyes roll white, but he tears into its jugular, letting the flat tasting blood flood his mouth.

 _I don't care, I don't even want it, necessity and nothing more._ He lets it fall to the ground the moment the blood slows. He leaves the corpse where it lays, already moving back toward the camp. 

He feels no better - if anything, his rage grows after he’s fed, resentment at his lack of satiation, the empty lifeless sustenance that leaves him still in pain, still exhausted and starving and miserable. He might sell the remaining tatters of his soul for some bloody peace, for the slightest cessation of pain, of hunger, even if just for the barest moment - so he could just _godsdamn breathe._

He pulls one of his throwing knives from his boot and flings it full strength at a tree yards ahead of him. It streaks glittering through the air and buries itself, quivering, all the way to the handle. As he walks past, he yanks it out, throwing it to the dirt when he sees the damage his pique caused to the carefully sharpened blade.

Stray, fragmented memories slip by that he cannot quite grasp - soft, smooth skin, silken blood, rich with emotion - the things he has been denied for two centuries, yet the sense memories ruin him for anything less.

_“Lany” . . . is that her name, it feels wrong . . . I feel like I should know . . ._

_Dammit all, I do not bloody know her!_

The dissonance pushes at his mind, demanding he find a way to reconcile these things in a way that makes sense.

He arrives back at the camp, where she still lays as he left her, curled into her bedroll. She rests quietly, and he watches her for some time. Eventually, her rhythmic breathing and the sound of her heartbeat calms him . . . he is so tired, so ill, that he finally closes his eyes. 

Were he still under Cazador’s control, his Master would never have allowed him to rest for such a reason - he would be out among the throng, seducing its lovely things while his head pounded and his eyes burned from exhaustion. At times he was so ill from the trifecta of constant fear, feeding from animals, and being force fed rotten blood that he was forced to slip away to be sick behind the glittering nighttime businesses of the city.

Such was life in the House of Cazador. 

The sickness was intentional, and none were allowed rest without giving their Master a tithe in blood, sex, or torture.

_And sometimes, when the Master is really feeling his oats, all three. Usually at the same time._

It is unsurprising then, that when he dreams, he dreams of . . . 

. . . Cazador.

* * * * *

Astarion walks on silent feet in the early hours, the night unfriendly, threatening, mist and misshapen trees keep their secrets, _but there is new terror that he must keep hidden, a new fear that he will be forced to play the weapon yet again._

Nothing moves, but he feels Cazador’s presence - _if he finds me he will know . . . and he_ cannot _know . . ._

_Don’t call out . . . be quiet . . . be cunning . . . I am only a shadow . . ._

**_You drank the blood of a thinking creature - how will you control your thirst to have it again, boy?_ **

That hated voice echoes all around him, but he lays on his belly, frozen, hidden. A vow was made to kill his sire, but 200 years have proven none equal to the task. 

The vampire lord is not wrong about the blood . . . his need for it burns in him, for the sweet rush of emotion and beauty . . . it is like the singing of sirens . . . but it is his, it is freely shared, and Cazador will not take it from him.

_. . . I will have no Master . . . I will have no Master . . ._

He gives no response to the call, letting only the rustle of the forest answer for him. His sire conceals himself, but he cannot hide forever from that fate he created for himself . . . from the weapon that would sheathe itself in his blackened heart.

_She is Sunlight, that which I crave the most and that which would destroy me were I still his._

**_You have broken my commands - why do you no longer obey your Master?_ **

His voice is insistent, angry - aware that Astarion somehow escaped him, Cazador believes it was Her . . . the fiery Sunlight to his Moon and Shadow. The vampire lord performs his dance, but the situation is changeable, depending on her mettle and the right moment. Astarion despises him, so he turns to silence, to hiding. If Cazador does not see, the light may yet punish him.

He won’t let Cazador force him to explain . . . _I will have no Master . . . I will have no Master._

**_You refuse to return to my side - you know destruction will be visited upon any who supplant me._ **

He does not pray to a kind goddess, so he prays that Cazador finds no way to head off the coming storm. _Let her be the coming storm - but let her stay furious and fiery and free of his control . . ._

Before, Astarion would have assumed his most charming mask, perhaps distracted Cazador from his purpose, begged that he take his pleasure rather than give the whip. Now, though, he is sickened remembering the assaults, the coercion that forced him to debase himself, the control that forced him to react. His self-respect will not be taken again by Cazador Szarr on this side of death. _He will not take me, and she will take him apart. I will have no Master._

**_You have forgotten whose creature you are - you are a fool to think you are free._ **

And suddenly, Cazador is in front of him, volatile and sly, materializing from the fog. A bolt of golden flame cuts through the air like holy lightning and strikes his form, dragging him into the mist again, back to his crypt where he is forced to cower. 

Astarion is bowed to the ground, groveling for the goddess to keep her, hidden and dark. "Please, you have to protect her.”

Pathetic, this fear, when the dream is different - _why I know this I cannot say._

This time there is a new fear, even while his black heart hopes.

He fears for _her,_ and he hopes she goes unnoticed.

* * * * *

He awakens on his bedroll, mercifully torn from the nightmare. He is still caught in the tendrils of the dream, hope and protectiveness overwhelming rational thought. _I do not know her - what is happening . . ._

He fights to gain control over the mental confusion, eyes closed, head down, focusing on anything real. The low crackle of the flame, the rushing of the waterfall, the uneven rocks beneath his bedroll. The steady heartbeat of his sleeping companion.

Slowly, his thoughts reassert themselves over the chaos. _I am changed, I can walk under the sun._

And then, a more insidious thought.

 _If I am free from the dominion of the sun, perhaps I_ am _free of you, Cazador._

My eyes drift to my companion, breathing deeply in her sleep.

Cazador's first rule.

_She wanted this, I saw it in her face, felt it deep in my gut._

Without a thought, he finds himself crouched at her side, listening to the siren song of her heartbeat, her scent teasing and sweet. _So much blood flowing through her, I could take just a bit, be away before she knows I took such liberty._

The curiosity, the Hunger, holds him in place while his mind whirls, trying to understand why he recalls her taste when he closes his eyes.

He does not touch her, but he is there, beside her, and he can’t force himself to move away.

In the end, it must be the new hope birthed in his dream that keeps him at her side, distant reminders of her taste, its perfection. It tries to force his hand and overwhelm his will. He left the forest already, unwilling to waste further time on the weak subsistence of lesser prey - that was only survival, it was not living like he imagines.

_I cannot trust her - she has only given me lies. Still, I might dare to hope that my new companion could become an ally in gaining control of the tadpole and destroying Cazador, despite whatever strange circle seems to be surrounding us._

His hunger demands that he feed from her. 

_I will not allow myself to harm the only ally I have, the only acquaintance I have beyond Cazador’s reach._

_Ah, but she could be oursssss. You cannot deny that you desire her - and you know the signs better than anyone that she needs no persuading. Don’t fight against your nature - you will fail. She does not asssssk you to deny yourself, why do you?_

He can tell when another nightmare shakes her rest - her breathing is rough, her heartbeat tries to pound out of her chest in fear. 

He prepares to move to the other side of the fire when Lany's eyes fly open, and she draws in a deep and terrified breath. She looks around and catches his eyes, but she clearly has not determined reality yet. She grabs his hand as an anchor, and places a kiss on his knuckles. 

"Rion, thank God. I had the most awful dream that I was . . . " She trails off as her surroundings suddenly sink in. She let's go of his hand, and sits up like she's been burned. She takes in a fast and panicked breath of air. Her hands fly to her mouth. "Oh. Oh, hell." 

"So," he yanks the vestiges of his thoughts together, slipping the mask over them again, "I'm Astarion. Who in the bloody Hells are you, actually?"

I consider, for a moment, just drowning myself in the river and getting it over with quickly. _See how well these little assholes can swim._

"Balls." I reach up to pinch the bridge of my nose, tearing off the horrible leather gauntlets. They are wearing a callus onto my palm, and they suck.

"I certainly can understand your hesitancy after such a long day. So let’s summarize what we already know, shall we?" He can't prevent trails of sarcasm from underlying his words - he is irritated at her lies, and worse, he senses a wildfire awaits over the next rise. 

She drops her hand, looking into the flames. "Yeah, okay."

"You are not from Baldur's Gate." She shakes her head, resigned. "You and I have been . . . extraordinarily intimate." 

At this, her face blanches, and her eyes fly to his. He simply raises an eyebrow to wait. She looks like she's going to cry, but she nods again. 

"You traveled here because you think you will somehow protect me." At the last, two fat tears escape. "How am I doing?" 

She puts her hands over her face.

“I would suggest that you explain, quickly, and with as little prevarication as possible. I find I am disinclined to be lied to, kidnapped, or manipulated any further today.”

I am frankly not even sure where to start. I had thought to have days, if not weeks, before I would have to face any questions from him - to be honest, I have no idea how he even knows.

_Oh, wait._

_He wouldn’t have . . . Actually, you know what? He absolutely would have._

“You used the tadpole without my consent.”

“You lied to me without mine.”

“I did not lie.” I refuse to look up at him. 

His voice picks up a small growl. “The name you gave me is not authentic.”

Her eyelid twitches slightly. “It is a shortened version - that does not constitute a lie.”

“You told me that you were kidnapped in Baldur’s Gate. This is not true.” He clearly has an entire list ready for review.

“It’s a lot more fucking believable than what really happened.”

She continues to obfuscate, to distract, to evade. _I cannot understand why in the Hells she is fighting me so hard. The monster has one thing correct - she fights herself as well._

_Perhaps a different tack might be called for._

"You know . . . much . . . about me. Dangerous things for a mortal to know. Yet I know nearly nothing about you, nor about your purpose here.” He lifted his chin, watching carefully her reaction to his words.

She gives a heavy sigh and finally meets his eyes. The light from the torch reflects in hers, a hazel center bleeds out into a dark ring of teal. Human eyes, but almost elven with their strange transitive color. “I’m here to help, to protect you - getting captured was not in the plan.”

He gives her a flat look. “What protection can a human give to a vampire? I could snuff your life in an instant. You should know better than to believe you are safe here with me alone." 

At this, she throws up her hands with a suddenly passionate denial. "You're not dangerous, you just need some decent . . . food. It’s going to take time for you to catch up on what you’ve missed, too. You’re half-starved.“

Surprise at my vehement outburst slides over his face, and I am aware in that moment that my emotions are a touch out of control right now. _This is the worst, though, starting over to convince him that everything isn't fucked. I need a smoke, which does not appear to be a_ thing _here._

"I have to wonder why you did not just tell me right away." He watches her eyes slide away from his, furtive. The light dawns, but he doesn’t yet see the shape of what he knows must be true. "This is not the first time we've had this argument." 

Her jaw sets, obstinate and reckless. Fierce eyes turn back to his. "You were wrong to try to prevent me from coming. I will do what I see fit." She nearly spits the words. "I was right, damn you." 

“You claim to be firm in your belief that I am in need of whatever assistance you imagine you can offer, and yet you still have not given me your real name. Your actions do not show the solid foundation you claim in this discussion.” His eyes narrow at her, goading.

She scowls at the ground again, stubborn and angry. _Lany . . . Lany . . ._ His mind falls back to his dream, to the identity of his mysterious ally.

Sunlight. _Lathanyll._

I see the wheels turning, his clever mind beginning to see the shape of the puzzle before him. _Shit._

“No . . . I know your name. _Lathanyll._ Sunlight. It was you, in my dream; you meant to kill Cazador. Many have tried and failed. I would never have allowed you to risk yourself.”

Tears well in her eyes as the fight goes out of her. She does not speak, but he can see she has no further wish to argue.

It only takes him another moment to remember the problem that connected them in the here and now - the most terrible of the things he would have feared could have harmed her when she came to him here, in the wake of the mind-flayers.

The mistake that she had made, that she apologized for in her dream. 

"Blessed Gods, Lathanyll." 

The words are a death toll to my ears, and I close my eyes to the reaction I know will be close behind. 


	6. Drastic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blow up has blown up.
> 
> Chapters 5-7 are new today, because that's just how we roll. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC.
> 
> Playlist add for the chapter is "We All Need Saving," by John McLaughlin, courtesy of Spotify.

He is not sure if he wants to throttle her, yell at her, or just give up and bed her immediately. He has no question, however, about how pissed he is. 

It is particularly irritating that she recalls so much that he cannot - it is like fighting a wraith in the mist. 

"What in all nine cursed hells were you thinking?" Somehow, he keeps his tone even and quiet. He does not feel either even or quiet. 

"The mind-flayer thing was not my fault, that was . . . " My mouth stopped working. _The fucking geas._ _Oh, that sneaky little smoky fucker._ I look across at Rion defiantly, unable to defend myself. _Guess we go in hot, then._ "The decision is made. Not everything went as planned."

"Oh, that's _quite_ clear." I see the thread holding him together strain at my defiance. One moment he is beside me, the next he is across the fire with vampiric speed. That he feels he needs space is not a good sign. "You took the chance of being _infected_ by a bloody _mind-flayer_ , and then were _surprised when it happened?"_

"You don't have to be shitty about it. Obviously, that was not optimal." 

_"Not optimal?"_ His eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. _I was right in the first place, she's out of her bloody mind._

"I had to come, so I'll figure it out." I felt like the ground was eroding from beneath me. "At least we're together!" 

"You did not _have_ to do anything." The reins he has kept on his temper for centuries slip - the pressure of those pent-up toxic emotions is enough to tear open the box where he suppressed them. "Why in the Hells would you think that risking yourself for me is something I would want?" 

He finally yells at me, lets his temper fly. Right now, I'm pissed, and I hate everything and everyone. I flinch at his words, but only for a moment, for this is the price I chose. 

If I wasn't so mad, I would take time to notice how gloriously lovely he is with his emotions finally freed. _I'll think it later, after I smack him in the head._

_Time to buck the fuck up, girlie. This is the game, and it's the move you picked, after all_. "You're too fucking stubborn to let me choose!" 

Her face, suddenly become painfully dear, is that of an angry, avenging angel. He marvels at her lack of fear, realizing that it has moved into him instead. "Your choice was unwise, you seek your own death! I can't recall many things, but I _know_ that you again and again put yourself at risk! I saw you do so with the intellect devourers, and you've done it here! If I object, you just go around me and let all the Hells break loose!" 

"Those are _my_ decisions!" I'm yelling, he's yelling - it's probably for the best we're out in the wilderness. 

"Decisions, you call them!" He is sharp and sarcastic on purpose. "I object to the moniker, because decisions require reasoning, and there is bloody none to be found here!" He hates this conflict, it feels like a maelstrom in his brain. 

"Oh, sure, because leaving my ass on Earth so you could forget me, and Cazador could send the Brute Squad to kill me, was certainly the most reasonable option!" _Short-sighted rogue._

His breathing was rapid, and his anger soared. "I am trying to rutting _protect_ you, you foolish human. I have the benefit of centuries, and you have barely passed the blush of your youth! Why would you defy me when you _know_ I am considering your best interests?" 

"Defy _you_?" Angry and careless at his high-handed words, I finally come to a decision. _Fuck the consequences, I'll detonate this shit right now_. " _Defy_ _you_! Damn _you_ and your _demands_ with you! I don't need your permission - you are not magistrate to me, _Lord Elfness."_

"You give me authority over you every time I bed you, you beg me to take it! My pardon if I assumed such things meant more to you than some wretched roll in the hay! To think I was naive enough to believe you appreciated my lead and wanted my protection!" His expression is angry and hurt. 

I am not so lost to emotion that I miss the importance of that comment. _He remembers a little. He never did before._

Still. "Don't you _dare_ try to make this about me not wanting something real with you!" I poked my finger at him, eyes snapping sparks of fury. 

"How can I not?" His anger transitions further to absolute terror on her behalf. He moves to her side again, and it's instinct not intent. "I am hardly able to think straight when you are in danger, and yet you will not let this desire for the void alone for ten minutes." 

She scowls in my face. "I came all the fucking way here, and I will tear this fucking world down before I lose you, so help me, because I love every inch of your goddamned vampire ass, so you can fucking stick that in your goddamned craw and suck it, Rion!" 

Shock sets him back for a moment, before his mind throws out the only rational answer to such a claim. His voice immediately calm, he states it quite clearly. "Then you love a monster." 

"Oh, fuck that, _actually!_ Damn this fricking world, you're just hungry and traumatized, but that doesn't make you a monster!" I move to stand up, to get some air to cool my temper. 

I realize my misstep immediately when he shifts at vampire speed from his crouch by the fire to kneel on the bedroll in my space, locking a hand on my thigh, pinning me in place. _Oh, and now he's vamping out. That's always helpful._ I hold as still as I can. 

"Perhaps," he drawls the word slowly with a glint of teeth, "you are volunteering." 

She fights not to shrink back, he can see it, and he hears her heart racing in reaction. 

_The truth emerges, she is afraid of me._

_She is not, you can scent her true feelingsssss. Accept your nature, and take what she offersssss._

I'm frozen in place, his touch terrifying but terribly missed. _Oh,_ _I want to, because clearly I am a raving idiot._ "I - I don't think it's safe. You're starving." 

He pins her with his eyes, fast losing interest in fighting his thirst if indeed she is open to his . . . specific needs. 

When he speaks again, the charismatic purr of the predator slithers into his tone. "Actually, my dear, I have already hunted this evening." The vision of him sinking his fangs and his length into her, buried to the hilt as she mewls in need and in pain, burns through him again. _Gods, that is irresistible - I would not deny her, but it seems . . . impossible._

She can't seem to look away from him. "Rion . . . You need to know that you've killed me twice from feeding when the Hunger was this aggressive." 

"Have I?" He can't say why, but he knows it is true. "And yet, you are here, alone in the woods at night." His eyes are very black. "I _like_ this . . . pet name." He stalks her, placing a hand to either side of her, blocking any retreat. "Perhaps we will keep this "Lany" for you. It is . . . diminutive."

He moves closer, too quickly for me to see. It is much harder in the wilderness to control my fear. I fight not to move, uncertain what I should do. I have seen this flame in his eye more than once, but it has a myriad of meanings. Some of them are fatal. "I can't allow it." 

His voice sounds introspective, but the cunning thread of the vampire hides within it. "You know," his brows lower, not hiding his threat, "I don't _like_ you telling me no."

Astarion is close enough to smell her fear and confusion. Her eyes are very round, her breathing fast and uneven. She whispers, "I don't like it either," and then, incredibly, turns her head to the side in silent submission.

He lets out a needy groan and closes the space the remains between them. He takes her mouth first, holding her face still as he explores her soft lips, her trembling jaw, and plunders her mouth. When he moves back, his roughness has left her lips a bit reddened, and it makes him think of her blood. 

He is drawn to her like a sailor to a siren, overwhelming all thoughts in his head of anger or curiosity or confusion. He leans in, hearing her take in a sharp breath when his lips brush the skin of her neck. It is maddening, knowing her taste yet knowing he's been denied for two centuries. He touches his tongue to where her pulse flutters. 

I gingerly place hands on his shoulders, so familiar, yet a lifetime away from where we are. He nips me gently, without breaking my skin, and a shiver runs through me. "Ask me." His voice is low, barely above a whisper. 

"Please, Rion." He feels the tremor run through her, it is fear and longing mixed into a thread of emotion. He licks her neck roughly along the vulnerable path of her jugular. 

"Not enough, I don't believe you are serious. Beg me to bite you." His voice is barely over a whisper. "Beg me, Lany, make me believe you." 

_Holy crap._ "Ahhh . . . I am, Rion, please let me feel you, please feed, I need it as much as you." 

_She is oursssss, take her. We know her ssssscent._

It was strange, his inner voice sounded different somehow. Sibilant. 

_And when you kill her again, what will you do?_

The tendrils of the beast slide across his will, tightening the noose of demand. _Ssssshe is oursssss. You know ssssshe didn't live because you overpowered our Hunger. We kept her alive when ssssshe returned to you ssssso many times. Fool._

_You are me._

_No. We are usssss, and you were given to be mine. Drink ssssso I can help you remember . . . I need her power._

She believes he hesitates at her efforts. "It's okay. I-I don't mind, and you will feel better." 

His forehead creases - so many voices, and she is so close. He breathes her in, but worries at the last moment . . . He is not sure she will be safe. 

Her own hands tuck his head in closer, his hair in her fingers which pull against him. It's incredibly relaxing, and his concerns evaporate. He takes a moment to center himself, then he pushes her down a bit roughly and strikes. 

Several things occur all at once. 

He drives his fangs into her neck and she gasps and stiffens; it feels like completion before he even drinks. When he breathes, he smells her emotions, her humanness. Her skin is soft against his mouth. 

She whimpers as the red silk of real blood, her blood, that which is his to take, slides into him, and he can feel the beginnings of a moment of sanity and satiation. He would groan, but he is too lost in the threads of her emotions. She is afraid, welcoming, a bit aroused, bits of anger still hide in quiet places. He drinks them all down. 

She relaxes as the blood loss kicks in, and her head becomes light as he takes more. His inner voice hisses with pleasure, and he feels it twist, stretching itself like a sleeper waking from a long nap.

He needs to slow down, he must keep his attention, but she is just so divine, and she invited him, and . . . Dark Lady, it's just so perfect. 

"Rion, you must stop if you want me to recover. You can feed again after you allow me time." I just want to fall into him, but he is still so dangerous. 

He growls at me, possessive and resistent. _Oh, we will, my pet._

My head swims. "Rion, you have to stop."

It is clearly frustrating, but he finally responds and pulls his teeth from me. 

He murmurs into my neck. "Amazing, delicious. I can't describe . . . " 

I know if I were to look at him that his eyes would be wide, wondering, a bit like a new addict with his favorite drug.

In his head, however, something more is happening. With an almost audible shriek, the horrid little beast in his head seizes as a portion of its own power is siphoned away in an instant. A surge of power into his vampiric powers wanes as he feels _something_ happen. 

Sudden knowledge rips into Astarion's head, so sharp and vivid that the worm writhes in shared pain. Visions flood through his head, and it's painful, too bright. 

He squeezes his eyes closed, trying to center himself in her neck. "Rion, what is wrong?" 

He groans, still washed by the open floodgates. He rolls from her, ignoring her blood still on his mouth, falling onto his back, hands pressed against his eyes in a vain effort to screen the visions. 

_The drow woman, red eyes blazing, throws him away from her, shoving off the ground in a horizontal spin that ends with her crouched on her feet, weapon pointed at him . . . She comes to him and he sends her away, disgruntled by her nature and her assumptions. He returns to his wine . . . irritated at his own hesitation._

_. . . Her eyes stare ahead of her, clear, cool aquamarine, but they are unblinking, and she lies in a pool of blood. Dammit, where is that blasted angry priest . . . She raises a gilded eyebrow, looking very mysterious and elven. She is pulled away as Gale calls her over . . . Two wizards, lost in blue flame . . . He wants to kill him, then he realizes she watches him through her magic._

Warm hands brush his brow, flutter over him. He is tethered to reality by her touch. 

_Her black eyes are bottomless but her face is angry, her tail twitching like a hissing cat. She feels lovely beneath him . . . She knocks him to the ground and offers him her blood, so he rolls her and drives his fangs into her as he plunders sweet softness . . ._

_She lies in a pool of golden sunrise, naked dove-gray skin glowing softly, small breasts a soft counterpoint to her slim frame. Her hair is down her back in a raspberry wave . . . She expresses concern about the scars on his back . . . They are in infernal . . . The idea is terrifying._

_He is in the Real, and he finally cries, locked securely against her heart, her emotions running through him, tearing down walls, and he is suddenly blinded with stunning realization, even though she is human. He had been wrong so many years ago. Such irony, he does not even know if her world recognizes a true_ thiramin _. . . She agreed with him, and he hates it, even though he knows no other way to protect her. He believes that she will allow him to return alone. He steps to the edge of the blue light, but then her arms wrap around him and they fall through the portal together . . ._

He comes back to the present, where Lany holds his hand in hers, her face scared and helpless. 

It has been several minutes since he spoke, and I do not know what kind of fit this might even be. I've never seen him brought down like this before. 

His eyes snap open, and he takes a deep clearing breath. His expression is pained and he runs his fingers through his curls roughly. He catches my hands and pulls them from his face. 

He sits up carefully, then drags me over onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me, barely leaving me room to breathe. He takes in the scent of my hair. 

"You should know, but I feel like you doubt me." His eyes were soft but quite serious. "Lathanyll, you are impulsive and so human it's sometimes painful. Still, I made you coffee and cared for you, because I love you too." 


	7. Duet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last couple chapters have been stressful.
> 
> Fluff and lemons. 
> 
> Chapters 5-7 are new today, because that's just how we roll. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC.
> 
> Playlist for this chapter is “Something Just Like This,” The Chainsmokers, Coldplay, courtesy of Spotify.

It takes a moment for his words to sink in. I can't decide what to do first, but he does not wait before capturing my lips in the sweetest, softest kiss. I wrap my arms around him, laughing softly between kisses and crying. "You remember? How?" 

He rests his forehead against mine. "All of it - I’m uncertain, but it is something to do with my curse interacting with the tadpole.” _And your blood, apparently._ He gives her a rakish grin. “You really did come back to me. You were _so_ eager for me. In fact," he raises his eyebrow, as he knows it drives her insane. “I wonder if I should be worried that you have been stalking me.”

"Let’s not quibble over semantics.” I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with emotional jumps right now. "After all, you have been described as 'walking sex' . . . I can't be held accountable for repeatedly falling to your wiles," I tangle my fingers in his pretty hair, "once I had such a 'consummate lover.'" I kiss him again, swiping the tip of my tongue across his bottom lip. He gives me that purr, and he takes the kiss over, hard and insistent, melding with me in a moment of desire and need. 

When he releases me, I am left breathless. 

"You break a lot of agreements." He is gentle, but truth causes his tone to list sideways. "And you are terribly manipulative." He unhooks my leather belt, tossing it away. "You said you'd stay, just like you said you'd avoid Cazador." He moves to divest me of the leather breastplate. 

"I didn't agree to it. You said I _should_ stay, and doubtless you were totally right." He throws the breastplate across to his own bedroll. "That doesn't mean I had any intention of remaining in my world without you. Not once did I agree to that." 

She is both adorable and infuriating. He growls at her response, and quick as a blink, his fangs pierce her shoulder, eliciting a pleasing shriek from his love. He licks away the welling blood, sweet with her high emotions. _Delicious creature, you are as cunning as I._

_Becaussssse ssssshe is oursssss. Thisssss one hasssss power none other here possessesssss, and we will not allow it to ssssslip from our control._

He has not even begun to process that somehow the bedamned vampire is acting like a separate identity in his head. 

Clearly it is still a part of him, as hissing laughter slides through his mind. 

_Bloody damnation, if you knew she was lying, how did you shield it from me? And what did you do to the bloody parasite?_

No response from the monster is forthcoming, only a sense of smug accomplishment. That his vampire half seems to be gaining autonomy cannot be a good thing. 

_Answer me._

_The Real holdsssss absssssolute power here. Before ssssshe came, ssssshe could end usssss all in a sssssecond from the middle place. Here, her blood ssssstill holdsssss power, power that can make us Massssster._

_How do you know this?_

Silence answers him. 

He slips off the tunic that lined Lany's leathers, finally gaining access to her soft, warm skin. "It seems so long since I felt you." 

I slide down into the soft furs, blood slipping onto the bedroll in dark drops. "I worried you would be so angry, or that you would not ever know me again." 

Our eyes meet, and his are diamond hard. His answer is silky. "Oh, _thiramin_ , I am terribly angry - I have every intention of showing you the consequences of lying to me. But don't doubt this: you are mine, and I hold what is mine." 

Dexterous fingers unlace her pants, and slip first boots, then greaves from her legs. She's left bare to the night, thankfully warm near the low fire. 

A light breeze tingles over me. 

"Will you accept your punishment?" His eyes are luminous, firelight and his own inner red flame make them appear as lovely gems. They are wide, so sweet, his face soft with emotion, but she understands that he means to cause her pain with their pleasure, and it makes her tremble. 

She nods to him, naked and vulnerable, exposed to him and the elements. _Soon enough, she will be shamelessly open to me, mine as is right._

_We will channel her power - already we take from the worm our rightful knowledge._

_You will not harm her._

_No, but we will hurt her. It isssss what you want, and we are content with that._

The 'for now' is left unspoken, but it is most definitely understood. 

He kisses me softly, but there is a violent promise of pleasure beneath it. He takes a moment to pull blood from my leaking shoulder, taking enough after already feeding earlier that I feel the cold of his death run through my veins. The sharpness fades, but leaves me restless against him, wanting to feel his skin under my hands. 

"Rion, can I touch you? Please, I have missed you." 

He looks at her consideringly, although it is only for show. He wants to feel her too, hot fingers, sharp nails, small, sharp teeth. Holding her gaze, he strips to the skin, then lets his weight down upon her, cold to her hot, hard against her softness. She moans audibly in small satisfaction and slides her palms up his sensitive sides. 

I feel a shiver run through him at my touch. It pleases me to know he is as affected as I am. He rests on me, heavy, anchoring me to the moment, and I am driven to mark him in some way. I nip the base of his neck, and he shudders in response, so I latch harder with teeth and lips, marking him as best as I can beneath the permanent wounds left by his Master. 

_Fuck you, Cazador. This one is under new management._

He is lost for a moment in her efforts. Cazador's bite was always intended to weaken him and to make him suffer - her teeth and lips pulling against him in an erotic counterpoint are nearly enough to bring him on the spot. He is forced to close his eyes and breathe through the sensation until she has satisfied her desire. 

Her changeable eyes are dark as she runs a fingernail over the mark, a small hint of the pain and pleasure he wants to give her in return. "Gods, you are going to end me, woman." 

"Sorry, escape is not as easy as that. You are now claimed in return," she laughs quietly. 

His eyes are suddenly serious. "Am I?" 

I feel a chill as I am suddenly self-conscious. "Is that okay?" 

Her eyes are careful, suddenly wary and almost afraid. _She misunderstands, yet she feels as I do. The worm revealed it._

He is not fully aware of the rituals of her world, but he had seen some images in the oversize pamphlets she had kept in her home. A plan materializes, but for now he simply says, "I welcome it, but right now I am hungry for your screams." His voice is a low rumble, but his movements are quick as he lifts himself to trail kisses down her neck to her breasts. 

His lips are a cool trail against my skin, and I know what is coming as he circles a nipple with his tongue. Still, I am not ready for it, as a delicate incisor slips the skin on the side of my breast. I whimper at the sharp invasion, but fingers stroke my inner thigh and I have trouble focusing on the pain. Still, I fear to move lest he tear my skin. 

His mouth whispers across her skin, as his fingers stroke so lightly across her softest places, moving to teasingly stroke her other thigh. When she moves restlessly, he pierces above her other breast and holds her with his fangs. She cries out, both piteous and needful, blood dripping luxuriously down her sides, but freezes as he knew she would. Prey keeps still to prevent further damage, and she is aware that she is always potential prey. 

"Tell me, darling," he looks up at her as he lets go, his mouth now circling her navel as warm blood drips from the other bites, "that you are allowing me free reign." He echoes her love bite on her stomach, but pulls too hard and breaks the skin. 

She whines in pain, and the bruise he leaves is a deep purple. She can't focus on anything for long, because she's nearly mindless at his careful refusal to give her any but the lightest touches where her emptiness demands him. 

"Ungh, I am." She writhes helplessly, failing to gain the slightest relief as he pulls away, just shy of pressure. She sobs a little, digging her nails into his shoulders. He continues his slow movement down her body, a hand holds her down to keep her still, the other pulls her legs apart to allow him to taste. 

The first touch of his mouth nearly takes me off the bedroll. _Holy shit. Holy. Shit. Holy. Shit._ He watches me, eyes cool, nearly clinical, noting my reactions. My fears are brought to reality as he follows the sweep of his tongue over that most sensitive bud with a sharp bite on my inner thigh, sinking fangs and his long fingers simultaneously. 

So close has he brought me that my orgasm hits me quickly, he takes his fingers away and drives his tongue into me. I can feel his fangs, sharp and stinging, so close to cutting the sensitive skin, I know he lets me feel them intentionally, because he enjoys the fear that lines my trust. 

As I come down and feel my body begin to gentle, another bite tears into my other leg. 

She finally screams for him then, but he doesn't let go, controlling her with his mouth - he rewards her by driving his fingers into her while rubbing her clit gently, steady. She sobs out a begging cry, pleading for mercy while driving harder against him. When he feels the fluttering against his fingertips, he moves his mouth closer to the junction of her thighs, driving his teeth into her smooth skin again. 

Again she screams, but it's rough, interrupted by the sweet pulsing of her satisfaction. "Rion . . . I can't." Her breathing heaves with sensation, pained and sated. 

His face gentles, and he trails his mouth over my navel again. "I know, darling, that hurts doesn't it." 

I squeeze my eyes closed, because I know he intended to give as much torture as pleasure tonight, and I'm nearly at the end of my rope. 

His hand gentles too, seeing my reaction, stroking my hair as he lays a kiss an inch below my navel. "One more, and then I will take my own pleasure in you. Agreed?" 

I nod, satisfied to know what will come. His tongue drives into me again, over and again until I'm shaking with the need to finish. I'm out of breath, but he bites once more anyway. Four perfect bites leak blood into the fur, matched by the two bloody wounds on my breasts. My thighs are slick with blood as he slips between them, rubbing the wounds with his body, sending shocks of hurt but he fills me, so perfectly, so incredibly perfect and full, I sigh with relief into his mouth when he kisses me. 

He moves with force over speed, licking the blood from her shoulder and then sucking hard at the incisions. He is barely hanging in, so aroused and taken by her sexy obedience and the taste of her blood on his tongue, the scent of her everywhere. 

He feels her shake with release again, so sensitive she screams it from a throat gone hoarse. He finally lets himself pour into her, the pure exhilaration of it rushing through him. He lets himself lay over her as she lets out an uneven breath. _Gods, I am too fortunate - fear fate will notice._

"Oh. My." I'm dazed, wordless. His sated eyes have heavy lids, and he gives me a deep, slow kiss. 

"Beautiful." His look is one of awe, as if he can't believe I've given him _carte blanche_ to have me as he will. 

I have no complaints, whatsoever, sore but incredibly satisfied. I feel like a purring cat, sliding a foot around his leg and letting my head fall to the pillow. 

"Mmm, I love you." I murmur the words on the edge of sleep, and his hand strokes my hair, my arm, before weaving his fingers between mine. So anchored, I drift into sleep. 

He lays awake for a long time after, listening to her breathe and worrying about the morning. 


	8. Declaration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a deep breath and dive in.
> 
> After this, we're all in on where we've been, as nothing is pre-written going forward. 
> 
> Free? Terrifyingly lost? We shall see. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Larian and WotC.
> 
> We're adding a little Peter Gabriel to our playlist. "The Book of Love," courtesy of Spotify.
> 
> It really is what plays in my head for them. Trust me - I'm a pianist who married a cellist . . . the second time. I know how important a good cello part can be.
> 
> YouTube for those who need it - if you don't know it, you should. Go listen.  
> Thanks to Carel Mendoza for the lovely slides.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmnDXRJ7btE

I wake up slowly, and the first thing I notice is a throbbing pain in my legs. Still a bit bleary, I hum a heal spell as I pull myself out of my bedroll and get up. It is only as the pain fades to the blue tingle of magic that I realize I'm both lightheaded and completely naked. A chuckling Astarion catches me from falling on my face. 

"Easy." I lean back into him; he is once again sexily padding around in only his breeches. His voice lowers as he murmurs in my ear. "Healing my love bites so soon?" 

Immediately, I flush red as a beet, as memories of his love play assault me, unbelievably hawt memories of intimacies I find hard to believe I allowed in the light of day. He wraps his arms around me in a true hug, laughing even more at my embarrassment.

"You are surprisingly light-hearted this morning." I turn my head up toward him and am immediately rewarded with a sweet kiss. 

"Hmm." I am swept up against his chest, chill in the morning air against my sleep warmed skin. 

"You carry off naked women often?" I let my head fall to his shoulder and close my eyes to make the world quit spinning. 

"Only when they have gifts awaiting them." He carries me across the log toward the ruins, setting me back on my feet on the large rock. Set on a neat pile is a clean handkerchief, a small bar of yellowed soap, and what appears to be a rough sheet. 

"Oh my God, you brought me bathing stuff? You brilliant, man . . . elf? . . . uhh, person? Ok, why don't I know this?" 

"I think you are looking for 'elf man.'" She tests the stream with a toe, making the most adorable squeak at its temperature. She gives him an interrogating look. 

"So I call you an elf male-human? That's incredibly ethnocentric - seriously, humans are assholes." He watches her gingerly step into the water, unabashedly ogling her backside and the partially healed bite marks on her thighs when she leans over. _Delicious._ "Holy crap, it's so cold!" 

He stretches out on the steps of the ruins, casual in pose, but watching the show with interest. To be completely, lecherously honest, he'd have followed her in, except . . . "At least it doesn't burn you." 

"F-fair p-point, s-s-sorry." I grab the cloth and the soap, strongly scented with lavender. I duck under the water, gasping at the temperature, but scrubbing as quickly as I can. "H-how about in Elvish then?" 

" _Quessirar_." I wash my hair twice, working around the tangles underwater as best as I can. I'm shivering as I pull myself out of the water - real nature is no place for a child of comfort. Rion waits for me with the bath sheet, and I pull it around me thankfully. 

"Y-you used that Elvish w-word last n-night." I swear my teeth might chatter right out of my head. 

"Did I?" He picks me back up again, and takes me back over to stand on my bedroll by the fire. A small tin teapot waits next to a few pastries. A comb and my clothes rest on the unfortunate fisherman's satchel. 

I sit down unceremoniously, starving and cold and thirsty. "Good heavens, Rion. Soap, tea, breakfast? Where did you find it all?" 

"Well, it certainly wasn't from the campsite of a few scavengers at the temple by the cliffs." His expression is neutral. 

I giggle, reaching a bare arm toward the fire to snag a roll. He crouches down to pour me a warm cup and hands it my way, settling down on my bedroll. "You are a handy _quessirar_ to have around." I try the word out on my tongue. "Did I say it right?" 

"Very passable for _aethen_." It has been years since his thoughts came to him in his native language. He does not like speaking of his origins, but it seems that she is going to bring such things to his mind whether he wills it or not. 

"That sounds like a 'no.'" She grins at him.

"Hmm." He is surprisingly nervous, and she seems bent on reminding him of his intent at every turn. "Elvish is complicated." 

I bump his shoulder with mine, catching his eye and winking. "Elves are complicated." 

He gives me an adorable, sexy look, but doesn't respond with the snappy comeback I was expecting. 

"Are you okay? You seem far away." 

He doesn't answer, so I lay my head on his shoulder while I sip my tea. He absently places a quick kiss on my wet head. I grab the comb, wincing at how tangled my hair is without conditioning. Ick. 

"You know I have lived in the human city for a long time." His eyes focus on the fire, lest he lose his nerve. 

"Is that strange?" 

"It is rare for an elf to remain with the humans and not return home. When I died, I was of an age to start a family." 

She picks through the tangles of her hair, no doubt missing the comforts of her home. He has a moment of doubt, questioning his right to give in to his desires, knowing that she doesn't belong in his world at all. He lacks anything to offer her, only this shared misery. "So why didn't you?" 

"Stubborn belief that I knew better than my family and elders." 

"You, stubborn and self-righteous? I would never believe such a thing." He grins, giving me a quelling look. "I'm only teasing because I share that trait, as you might be aware." 

He coughs out an unexpected laugh. "Wouldn't have guessed." 

I weave my fingers through his. "Thank you for being so nice this morning, on that note - I was very nervous about how any of this was going to go. I hadn't thought this far." I pick at the linen wrap, giving him a sly side-eye. "Good thing you love me, huh?" 

His shoulders quake suspiciously. "Good thing." 

"I'm glad you do." 

"Are you certain?" A slim finger nudges my chin to look up at him; his face is as open and clear as I've seen it. There's a thread of something new in the words. 

"Well, I've never let psychic squid put a creepy crawly in my brain for a guy before, so, yeah, I guess I am." I smile at him encouragingly, hoping to help him through whatever is gnawing him today. 

"Lathanyll." He uses the lovely name he gifted me, his tone strange and solemn. _Well that's completely terrifying._ He shifts, and pulls me, damp cloth, comb, and all, onto his lap. He wraps his arms around me. 

"Better?" She kisses his jaw, and snuggles up to him. He finds some small courage at her immediate acceptance of his touch. 

"Actually, yes." He sounds a little surprised, and he is quiet for a moment. 

I'm tempted to tease him a bit, but he looks so painfully serious. "Rion, you're so flighty right now that I'm surprised you haven't sprouted sparkly butterfly wings." 

He loses a little of the tension in his shoulders. "Maybe you should ask the wizard for some. Apparently, he is quite enamored, even after you've taken a lover."

She punches him in the shoulder. "Oh, jeez, you really do remember everything. I couldn't believe he even asked - I'm impressed you didn't stab him." Her laughter echoes across the camp. 

He closes his eyes and lets the sound wash over him. "Does your world have," he searches his mind for the Common equivalent of the Elvish idea, "soulmates?" 

"Depends on who you ask, but some believe in them, yes." She links her fingers in his, watching the flames, content. 

"My people, _Tel'Quessir,_ lack your human concerns about intimacy. We," it seems strange to speak of himself as one of them, "are in no hurry to make permanent attachments. It is a century to even become an adult. Thus, it is customary to not marry until one finds their soulmate later in life, after time and experience have provided wisdom and judgment." 

"I sense this discussion relates to why you became the magistrate of a human city." 

He makes a quiet sound of assent. She nods, patiently. _If he finally wants to share his story with someone, I am happy to oblige._

"I left the elves shortly after my 102'nd year." He pauses, wanting to give her time to absorb the age gulf between them. 

"I'm going to guess this is where the youthful stubbornness comes in." He hears the indulgent smile in her voice, surprised yet again that it doesn't bother him. 

"Indeed. It will likely not surprise you that it involved my infatuation with a young _quessirar_."

"Not in the least. I'm more surprised he's not still moping after you 300 years later." 

This time, his laugh is audible. "Quite the opposite, _thiramin_. I informed my family that I believed he was my soulmate, and I intended to pledge with him." 

"I take it they said no?" 

"They strongly cautioned me to slow down, to not rush my decision. I, being the headstrong child I was, disregarded their counsel."

"Complete disclosure, I've thought you were too intelligent for your own good since I met you." I snicker aloud, waiting for his response. 

"Hey!" He pokes her in the ribs in mock revenge, eliciting some lovely wriggling on his lap and a sharp bite on his thumb. He captures her arms, enjoying her dishevelment. She tries and fails to reach a sensitive ear with her tongue. "Imp." 

"Sounds like your mother and I might agree on some things." She squirms her way back against him. 

"I have no doubt that the two of you, and my sister, could unfairly malign my character for hours." I can hear that smart-ass smirk. 

"I am sure you have been slandered quite horribly." 

"I accept your apology." He keeps speaking over my indignant laugh. "To continue my story, I took my profession of love to my beloved, and he turned me down. As you can guess, he was more realistic about love and youth than me - he already had plans to see the world." 

"I am sure you were quite heartbroken." 

"I certainly was. I believed that my soulmate had denied me, and I believed that I would never recover. Elves very rarely remarry if their soulmate passes away." His voice is very dramatic, his sarcasm protecting him once again with dry humor. 

"So you left. Did you go back when you had cooled off?" 

"I did not. I expected that I could give everyone a good century to forget my humiliation." His voice turns quietly melancholy, angry. "I did not have the luxury of time." 

"Cazador no longer controls you. Assuming we eject our stowaways, you could return?" My heart hurts for the embarrassed youth he had been. I wonder again if Cazador had set his trap to capture the lovely Aasterinian - shame and anger would have made him a vulnerable target. 

"Perhaps that would be possible were I not _Tel'Quessir_. My undeath is anathema to them - the protectors of the city would be obliged to destroy me on sight." 

"How would they know if you were awake during the day?" 

"They would sense the difference immediately." Old pain - he buries his face in her drying hair, warm and scented with lavender. "Don't worry over me, it has been a very long time. I have forgotten . . . nearly all of it." He looks down and away, protecting himself reflexively. 

"Rion," her voice gentles. For once, she guides his face back to hers. "I can see you waiting for repercussions, but it's okay if you don't want to contact them. It was just a thought. I'm not going to kick you to the . . . No, you don't have curbs . . . 'kick you out the door' for disagreeing." 

His face loses all humor, his eyes very grave. "I forget sometimes how much you don't know of our world. Common belief claims my lack of memories as proof that I am no longer myself. Vampires are evil, and so are their spawn. Were I to become a true vampire, I would become a ravening, power-hungry beast. Clearly you haven't read up on the subject." 

"You all need less crazy wizards and a few more medical people - one of the results of years of trauma is losing chunks of your memory." I looked up at him encouragingly. "I have a lot of holes in my memory too - people, events. It sucks." 

"My dear, you simply don't understand, and I adore you all the more for it. Elves are part of the natural order of things. Undeath is . . . " the always loquacious Rion seemed afraid to say the words, "one of our greatest taboos." 

"They would rather you be dead?!" 

He blinks. "Well . . . Yes, of course." 

"Wow. That sure takes the shine off Elven culture to know they are as infallible as we are." She huffs indignantly. "No offense, of course, but parents who deny seeing their child - I will never understand." His eyebrows rise at her tone. "We have parents who would deny their children for . . . well, awful reasons." 

"You can say it, I'm aware, you know. That kind of attitude . . . is not unheard of here," His expression is back to that painful neutrality. 

"No thanks. Speak no evil and all - although I'll say this - I have no clue how _I_ have _you_." She smiles back at him shyly, continuing when his eyes widen in unfamiliarity. "Returning to that original point, if I were to have a child, I would want to see them, vampire or, even _worse_ ," she pokes his chest, "slimy _politician_." 

"'Slimy?' Ouch, a mortal wound." He places a hand over his heart, pretending to slide into a slow death. I scowl at him. 

"It's not funny, you ass." 

"It is, a little." He peeked through one dramatically closed eye. 

"You have a morbid sense of humor." 

He spreads his hands. "Darling, I'm dead." 

"And you're killing it. Anyway, 'screw up and you're done' is a shitty rule. You're not the 'kill on sight' type of vampire, if that's even a thing. You should send them a letter, that's a thing in this world, right? You don't have to even meet them if you don't want." 

He staves off further ranting with a raised hand. "I will consider your advice." 

I blink. "Really?" 

A hint of humor passes across his face at my surprise. Once again, I feel his anxiety rolling off in waves. 

"Something is really bothering you." 

"I find myself in a strange position." She looks at him, concerned but patient. "I did not expect to be forced to walk back such old decisions." 

She gives him a kind smile. "You were young, love is rough, no matter who you are." 

"I am quite certain, now, actually, Lathanyll." _Who knew humans were more complicated than we are? They always seemed so simple._

His lovely voice is dark, warm. He pulls my hand to his lips, placing a kiss on my knuckles, his eyes fervent. I can't explain it, but suddenly butterflies try to beat their way out of my chest. He releases my hand, having passed something into it without my notice. 

He feels like everything moves very slowly as she opens her hand, frowning slightly in confusion at the gold signet ring, rubbed to a sheen with time, resting on her palm. "It's a signet ring . . . ? Oh." Her eyes grow very wide. "Ohhh."

He waits until she looks up at him to speak again, his voice unsteady. "When _Tel'Quessir_ recognize their soulmate, it is said that they are certain of their bond in that very moment." 

" _Thiramin_." I whisper the word, and his face takes on that heartbreaking hopeful look, the one that expects disappointment and loss. "That means soulmate." 

"Indeed it does." 

"Aasterinian," I hear a small sound when I use his real name. I look again at the ring in my palm, unable to believe I'm going to ask this, "This is an elven . . . proposal?" 

He looks suddenly shy again, like he did in the light of the sunrise, what seems so long ago now. "I would pledge myself to you, if you would accept me." He frowns and looks down at the ring in my hand. "I saw that it is customary to give your love a ring in your world, though I know I can't promise you anything, but if we should make it through this and somehow I were free from Cazador . . . " 

I slip his ring onto the index finger of my left hand while he speaks, and he trails off. "I don't know what an elven lady would say, or how any of this even works here, but yes, and the ring is just . . . lovely. I am . . . quite certain. Like, so very certain." I draw breath to let out an incredulous laugh. 

Just that quickly, I'm swept close to him, kissed to breathlessness, a fierce and fey joy clear in his face. 


	9. Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of fluff and lemon to start, and then we get into the smallest foothills of shaking up the canon storyline. Welcome our lovebirds back from their adorable not-quite-married honeymoon.
> 
> Nice to see some new reader faces - welcome. Feel free to drop a comment as it occurs to you - I try to respond to everyone, speaking of disclosure, cuz I am mostly here to geek out with ya'll.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Larian and WotC. 
> 
> Glossary of elven phrases / terms is in the endnotes; they just seemed a bit . . . spoiler-ish.
> 
> Playlist add is Journey's "Faithfully,' because we can. Courtesy of Spotify.

Time is short, so our idyll must be, by necessity, short lived. 

Still, now that I know what had him so worried, I feel much better. Well, that and sneaking looks at his ring on my hand, then at him, while I braid my hair and finish my tea and another pastry. 

I'm in the middle of that process yet again, examining the carved blue gem with a stylized rune I can't read, inset in a surprisingly delicate band. It makes my hand look small and slender. 

When I look up again, his bedroll is empty. 

"I like seeing it there as well." He leans next to her ear, letting her scent settle into him. 

"It means you’re mine." Contentment is clear in her voice.

"Although I know it is necessary, I find I do not wish to share you yet." He sighs and kisses her nape, soft tiny nibbles that trace up into her hairline. "Were it my choice, I would spend a month reminding you of why you love me." 

I laugh softly. "Don't think I don't find your _argument_ quite compelling, but that is why I can't keep my hands off you, not why I love you." 

"Your hands _and_ your eyes." 

"Well, you are home in your world. This is where you have been most familiar, and now I am where I dreamed of being." I relax into the arms that are suddenly around me. "I also am disinclined to let them in. I know I am here for a reason, but I wish that were different."

"So why, then?" He can’t resist the urge to ask - it still does not seem real.

"Why what?" 

He tries for casual. "Why _do_ you love me? Besides the obvious wit and charm, of course." 

The trail of perplexity in his voice is heart-rending. Clearly, I need to address it, but I am just not sure what he needs to hear. "What, do you want, like, a list or something? 'Buy healing potions, pick up your laundry, and write one lovely thing about Rion.'"

"I don't know." He examines his nails, gracefully as always. "It might be a pleasant routine, you extolling my virtues." 

I giggle. "Well one of your virtues is that you are precisely as interested in _being_ virtuous as I am." 

"Mmm . . . " He returns to the teasing kisses, fully aware how fortunate he is in that respect. "I confess we are well-matched on that. Then again, I am irresistible. What else?" 

"Your obvious humility, perhaps . . . and your endless patience with humans." I grin, waiting for his response.

"You truly are an imp." My picking earns me a poke in the ribs and tiny play bites. "Tiny. Fierce. Cheeky."

"You, _milord,_ besmirch me."

He growls at the title, low in his throat. I continue. "This is going to get all mushy." 

"I hope so." His voice is regretful; his mind too creative for the day they must undertake. "I wish we could be doing this with you naked and astride me, but we are time short and task long." 

_Ahhh, yeah._

His voice rumbles a bit in my ear. "Your heart races. I love how you react to my slightest word - ready for me without a touch." 

"Yes.” Her voice wavers.

“You should know that it makes me want to treat you as a mark, to drive you to the absolute brink with words and touches, then leave you to wonder when I will give you relief.” He chuckles - it's low and sexy, and it brushes something deep within me. “Dammit, if I don’t want to tear off everything you are wearing and do it right this minute.”

As he said I would be, I am breathless already. “Perhaps we should head toward one of our illustrious companions while we talk.” 

“I suppose we must.” I can feel his eyes on me as I get up.

I pull out some food and water for the day, packing whatever I might need into my bag. “Now let me think - I love your persistence, I have no idea how you even keep putting a foot in front of the other. Also, you cradled my head on your arm every time you interrogated me by the beach. Sneaky thing.”

“You give me too much credit, these things I had no choice.”

“Careful, or I am going to call you humble and be totally serious.”

“Blessed Dark Lady forbid.” He grins, but he hangs on her words. He cannot help but fear that the reality of his nature simply has not hit her yet.

She laughs, and the sound is sweet. “Very well . . . I love that even after all that time, you still can be light-hearted and vulnerable; I love that one of the things that pulled you from your family was idealism, denial of what you were told had to be.” I pull the backpack, blessedly light, over my shoulders, resting back against him for only a moment and then pulling myself to my feet. “I love that you found out about rings in my world, even though you felt we were doomed apart.” 

“Lany . . . “ He already has a strange lump in his throat.

“I love that you are fucking hilarious, all the time, even when I should punch you right in the nose for being a butt - I spend an awful lot of time wanting to throttle you while I die of laughter. I love how you have every reason to not let anyone near you ever again, and yet you gave me your ring yesterday.”

I cross the log by the ruins and turn toward the woods. He follows me . . . my mind still spins the true things out. “I love watching you pick out shampoo, and painting your toenails. I love how you get excited about hair products and chocolate and fancy shoes. I love how you know what it means to put a mask over your true self, and that you let me see behind yours. I’ve never met someone who is always beneath one like me. It makes me feel brave about coming out from mine, you know.”

I hear a choking sound behind me, and I am yanked into a deep kiss. “Godsdammit, let them wait.”

With that, he strips me below the waist, unlacing as he picks me up, my legs around him. My back hits the stone of the ruins, and he is in me before another thought can slide into my mind. His kisses are hard, almost desperate, his movements rough.

He is incredibly focused on the lovely creature in his arms. “No one has ever . . . seen me like you . . . not one fucking time ever . . . “ He struggles to speak, kissing everything he can reach. “I don’t know . . . how you see what you do . . . but Gods, sweet, sunlit girl . . . so much heat . . . so delicious . . . ” 

He braces one hand on the wall, moaning at the friction between us. I can barely breathe, so I weave my fingers into his hair as he drives me toward yet another release, so sensitive that it approaches terribly fast. The wall is rough behind me, and I pull against his lovely curls in response, hard enough to hurt. He gasps, pain and pleasure bringing his eyes open. He looks into mine just as the wave hits me, and I swear I fall into their glowing depths. I feel his continued movements wash through me, adding to my own tremors. “Rion . . . oh hell, Rion . . . love you . . . "

“ _Mine,_ Lany . . . stay with me . . . there are old things . . . but I don’t . . . want to see you hate me . . . Gods, love . . . say it, tell me, promise . . . please.” He buries his face in her neck, nearly overcome.

I feel aftershocks from my orgasm, but I speak through them. “Yours, Aastarinian . . . fucking yours, baby . . . I’ll stay . . . yours . . . couldn’t hate you . . . promise.“

A string of hitching, sibilant words brush my neck as he falls over the edge into me. “ _D’saloh. D’etha. D’aera. D’faen.”_ As he comes down, he steals my lips, murmuring in elvish against my mouth. _“Lathanyllitae, va sal aestar eath’she. Thiraminitae, d’arael va hied, sal am hiine.”_

I catch nothing but the intent, still knowing that he whispers sweet nothings at me in Elvish is the most incredible, sexy thing. He holds me to him for a few moments, taking advantage of the last bit of our privacy.

When he lets her down, reluctantly letting her leave his embrace, she takes a few moments to put herself together. Silent and thoughtful, they leave the camp to go find the others. 

* * * * *

Of course, it is inevitable that we allow others into our fragile circle, but after the last 24 hours, I'm really not up for the crowd of conflict that is coming. Still, I've put it off as long as possible. 

“Gale or Shadowheart?”

“If neither is no choice, then . . . I suggest Gale on the way to Shadowheart.” Rion’s face is acidic. 

“What are we telling them?” My brow creases. “I would suggest either nothing, and we just move forward like normal, or we tell them everything, and we hope they are cool when everything changes.”

“It is safer that they know my nature than that they know that you are an off-worlder. I have little trust in Gale’s better side when it comes to magical mysteries.” His brow creases, recalling too well how the wizard seemed to have his fingers in everything.

She nods as they walk through the destroyed nautiloid toward the bluff. “Then I would leave the decision to you. Do you want to hide what you are or just be . . . well . . . you?”

“Just be . . . me.” His face turns snarky.

“Yes . . . why are you looking at me like that?” _Am I really so far off from reality, here?_

“You realize they may attack me, right?” He looks flustered.

“Do you think it might help if they know we are . . . uh . . . _thiramin?_ It is daytime, you will be like, totally calm. Maybe we could do a PDA?”

He is confused, and he can feel frustration at her idealism growing. _She is so difficult to protect._ “A 'PDA?'"

"Sorry. A 'public display of affection.'" 

A spike of fear and adoration slides down his spine. “You want to meet them as the . . . mate of a . . . vampire spawn?” He can’t help but be touched at her acceptance of his nature. _Still, it is only because she does not understand enough to know better._

We are close to the portal where we will find Gale, so I stop for a moment and touch his arm. “I don’t think I understand . . . could you back up just a little? What are you worried will happen to me if they know that we are together?”

“I doubt they will believe it - it's not anything I've seen. They will most likely believe I am controlling you or waiting to cause harm." 

“I’m behind you either way. I don’t think _these_ two are going to run screaming at you with torches." I hold out my hand to him, and a small part of me is still surprised when he takes it. "I will let you choose - you know your world."

He is clearly still ruminating, but I don't think I've yet heard what's really going through his mind. 

He knows it is foolish, but the idea of letting them know how fully he possesses her is terribly compelling. "If we were to . . . tell the truth. Would you not be uncomfortable having them find out that you let a vampire . . . " He trails off as he considers his words. 

I wait, hesitant to miss whatever he might say, but uncomfortably reminded suddenly of his words about the elves. 

_"They would rather you be dead?"_

_"Well . . . Yes, of course."_

She doesn’t respond, and his eyebrows drop into a scowl, more at himself for risking her than at her for her idealistic nature. "Blast it, woman, they will ask if I've fed from you! What will you tell them? That you have allowed it, not only once, but that you . . . enjoy it?" He lowers his voice, trying his hardest to make her understand. _Sweet lady of mine, I would wish it weren’t necessary for you to see._ "I would not dishonor you by making you out to be some . . . some . . . " 

“Vampire’s whore?”

He winces at my obscene term. I suddenly understand, and my overdeveloped sense of justice goes off like a police siren. "Well this just can't be allowed to _stand_." 

Rion was clearly expecting me to say something else. He tips his head, thrown off. "Beg pardon?" 

"I'm not going to run around Faerun treating my relationship with my dearest love as if it's shameful, so you might as well disabuse yourself of that idea right now." 

He looks at me, somehow still condescending despite the subject matter. "You aren't thinking clearly, love."

"Are you embarrassed of me allowing you to feed?" I scowl right back. 

"What? No! It's nothing like that at all! It is . . . the most amazing thing.” His words are fervent, and his eyes plead for her to be gentle with them both. “ _Thiramin,_ I don't want them to think you would allow yourself to be used as . . . _food."_ He looks away from her, ashamed at the need to clarify. 

_I think I'm breaking his brain._ "Will you do something for me?" 

His expression is wary, but I have to admit he has reason enough for that. _Smart guy._ He nods, cautious.

"Stop doubting my intelligence - I am perfectly capable of preserving my own ‘reputation’ if I feel it is warranted. Do you or do you not believe that it's safe?" 

He sighs heavily. "I am not certain how they would react." 

"Well we're going to find out, then." She walks determinedly toward the portal.

"Godsdammit, Lany." He speaks in a hissing whisper as he catches up to her, but he is too late to discuss it further. 

The portal opens, discharging Gale from the rock wall. He immediately looks Lany up and down. _I will tear your neck open, wizard._

“Last I saw you, you were lying in a crucible’s worth of blood, aa intellect devourer nibbling at your ear. Glad to see my eyes deceived me. I’m Gale. Well met!”

My dearest steps up beside me, and slides his arm around my waist. _Aww, he’s so cute when he’s possessive._ “I am Rion. Well met - this is my intended Lathanyll.”

“Lany,” I add. “And please, if you see me lying around senseless in the future, feel free to slap me awake or something. When I woke up alone, I assumed no one had seen me.” _Ass._ “Where did you come from, Gale?”

“See that rune? Netherese, I think. Weave’s so thick on it, it’s almost viscous.”

“I assume you were also on that ship with us?”

“The very same. A traumatizing experience, if an instructive one.” He speaks as a teacher to a pupil. Rion feels Lany’s spine stiffen. _Maybe she might shoot him on her own, actually._

“Irritating - and gross. We were both infected - fortunately, Rion and I found each other again after the crash.” A sudden cough issues from my side. _Oh, potato, potahto._

“I take it you recall the insertion of the parasite?” His tone is patronizing as hell, but I’m still trying to hold my temper.

“I keep trying to forget . . . then it _moves.”_ Rion squeezes me slightly, reassuring.

Gale nods, face solemn. “Yes. The ocular penetration by an Illithid tadpole which will end with our souls being scuttled like strands of Weave caught in Dead Magic.” He pauses and looks at me. “You’re both staring at me like a Rashemi at a blackboard. You’re no wizards, are you?”

“No, but I'm familiar enough with anatomy to follow much of it. I have simply been trying to avoid thinking of it in quite those terms. I rather prefer my brain the way it is, before the little bastard starts eating things I might want later. Why do you ask if I’m a wizard?” I smile neutrally, although I know the answer.

“That’ll have to wait. The primary need now is a healer.” He looks at me hopefully. “I assume you’re no accomplished healer either? A powerful cleric maybe?”

“I can tend to basic wounds and ailments, but I can’t remove alien parasites. Never occurred to me to study that - just didn’t seem relevant.”

Rion’s eyes narrow at the defensiveness in her tone, an idea slipping into his head. He slips his most urbane mask into place, his voice low and sleek. “Don’t be so dismissive of your _work_ , darling.”

She blinks at him.

To Gale, he shakes his head. “She does not give herself credit - she is quite knowledgeable about medicine. Since my . . . “ he gestures at himself with his other hand, ”unfortunate _transition_ she has been quite keen on curing my condition, but so far . . . ”

“Your . . . condition?” Gale looks at him intently.

“Vampire spawn, currently freed from mental slavery and that pesky sun damage by our small stowaways.” He gives me a sharp grin. “I don’t doubt she will succeed yet in handling my little problem.”

“Well, I just feel I should warn you - I taste terrible.”

My eyes are all for my dearest _quessirar_. “No worries, there, we have a _system_ in place for that.” I think purposely of his most recent endeavors, and I blush again. _Perfect mask._

Rion’s eyes sharpen in response and then return to Gale, making certain to clearly establish his claim. “At least my abilities should prove helpful should we run into any trouble.”

“Perhaps.” He still looks a bit concerned, but he seems calmed by my easy reactions to Rion. “I assume you’re aware that after a period of excruciating gestation the tadpoles will turn us into mind-flayers? A process known as ceremorphosis?” He gestures for emphasis, “It is to be _avoided.”_

“Yes,” Rion drawls, “the irony of the situation has not escaped me.”

“Hmm. I suppose it hasn’t. We’ll need to find a healer - and fast. The three of us are in a whole lot of trouble. We need help, and I’m not sure where we’ll find it in this wilderness.” He looks at us, well, me really, consideringly. “How about we embark on the quest for a healer together?”

I cross my arms, satisfied. “That sounds like a plan. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Most excellent. Then without further ado, let’s be off!”

I nod and move back toward the crash. “We’re going to check the beach where I landed . . . or didn’t land, to be more accurate. Floated, and then dumped on my back like a sack of potatoes.” I gesture back down the path. “There were some boot prints that I wanted to check out - after we were reunited, we set up a camp for the night nearby. There may be another survivor.”

They retrace their steps through the nautiloid, Rion leading, still loosely in possession of her left hand. He brushes his ring, suppressing a smile and commenting at the remains of the mind-flayers on their way. “Sharp work, my dear. That appears to have been a fire potion, if I’m right. Did you steal _everything_ from the mind-flayer ship before you crashed it?”

“No, dearest, I simply couldn’t figure out how to carry those _lovely_ purple lights. However, there is one over there that appears undamaged. It would certainly be a pleasant marker to collect for our camp before we return this evening.” I point at the glowing, volatile container, and he rolls his eyes. “Also, there is a locked crate a bit further on, if you wanted to see about breaking into it to check for supplies.”

Gale lets out a quick, and clearly relieved, laugh. “I will be honest - I had some concern about the veracity of your story, but it is clear that you two are truly a match. I imagine there is a story to be told here.”

Shadowheart’s voice drifts to us from the beach. _“Blasted door!”_

The three of us move toward her, and she notices us with a start. “I - what? _Stop!_ Not another step or I’ll . . . “ She looks at me last, and her expression shifts. “Wait. It’s you . . . you’re the one who tried to free me, on the ship.”

“Poorly.” I grimace, and I notice a small twitch on the side of her mouth.

“At least you made the effort.” Before she can comment further, our tadpoles connect. Rather than seeing her past, strangely I feel her current emotions - confusion, resolve, and a small bit of gratitude. She winces when it ends. “ _-Agh!_ Did you feel that? You’ve got the same thing I do - in your head.”

“We all do, actually.”

“That must be what caused our minds to . . . cross.” Her face grows frustrated. “These things are going to consume us from the inside and turn us into mind-flayers. We need a healer. Finding one won’t be easy in this wilderness.” She looks up at the bluff. “We’ll need supplies.”

I see Gale over by the cliff wall out of the corner of my eye, looking at the second portal. 

She is still talking. “I’m hoping something of use might be behind this door . . . but I’ve barely made a dent in it so far.”

Rion walks up behind her, as he hears Lany respond. “Looks like you need a hand.”

Shadowheart smiles dismissively. “Be my guest, but that door’s too strong. Maybe there’s another way, up the cliff.” She gestures at the dead intellect devourers behind them. “Hopefully there’s no more of these things.”

I smile at her, trying to be welcoming, but I see Rion unpicking the lock behind her. _Really, love, again?_ “It’d be nice to have another hand in the fight.”

She raises her eyebrow. “Or just company for our final moments. Still, you’re right - whatever lies ahead will be a little less daunting with support. You can call me Shadowheart.”

The door clicks open behind her, and Rion leans back against the wall, gesturing grandly. 

Shadowheart spins around. “What? You just _got it open!”_ She huffs at his obvious amusement, rolling her eyes and turning back to me. 

“I’m Lany - Rion, that scamp behind you, is my very-adept betrothed," his eyes sparkle at my description, "and this is Gale with us. He also survived the crash - we all did.” 

“Lead the way.” Shadowheart points to the unlocked tomb door.

“Actually,” Rion speaks from behind her, “there is a more potentially fruitful lead up on the bluff, not that we cannot come back and explore here later. A group of what appears to be murderous bandits has staked out the upper floors. I might have relieved them of a few supplies this morning.” He winks at his love mischievously. “And more good news, you won’t have to worry about me being a _drain_ on the food resources - I’ll make do with the angry halfling leader.”

Shadowheart’s eyebrows shoot up, but before I can clarify his little joke, Gale is at her elbow, solicitously explaining. Rion returns to my side, and I shake my head at him. Still, his eyes are dark and lovely, and I can hold no true anger after he took the risk of revealing his vampirism. 

He offers me his arm, and I rest my head on his shoulder for a moment as we pass through the portal together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dropping these down here, for those interested. Where there are two potential definitions, both should be considered intended. Thanks to the Elven Translator, the Guide to Espruar, and several random people on Reddit for their translation suggestions.
> 
> "Lathanyllitae, va sal aestar eath’she." - “My beloved Lathanyll / sunlight, I love / am committed to you forever.”
> 
> "Thiraminitae, d’arael va hied." - "My beloved soul-mate / betrothed, you hold my heart."
> 
> "Sal hiine." - “I am yours.”
> 
> "D’saloh" - “My gift / blessing”  
> "D’etha" - “My healer (female)”  
> "D’aera" - “My song / singer”  
> "D’faen" - “My life”


End file.
